A Gem of a Jam

How anyone can mistake Moe, Larry, and Curly for doctors when they're clearly the building janitors is beyond me in A Gem Of A Jam. The boys are doing a stooge like job as janitors at that.

Still while the boys are doing their thing and they do have some white coats on, three crooks break in, one of them wounded in the arm. The crooks at gunpoint ask them to take a bullet out of their pal. So they decide to take a whack at surgery and that should be taken literally.

After they dump their patient off a gurney, out of a window, and into a police car the other two start chasing the Stooges. Curly gets covered with white plaster and everyone, but his pals think he's a zombie.

Not as funny as some of the shorts, but the fans of Howard, Howard, and Fine will be pleased.

The Stooges are office cleaners mistaken as doctors by bank robbers. The leader has been shot in the arm and the Stooges are forced to operate! Will they get out of this "Gem of a Jam"?

"A Gem of A Jam" proves the old saying that the sum of the parts are greater than the whole. There are individual scenes that shine: the Stooges do their classic bit, the "Cossack Dance." The scene with Curly being "operated" on instead of the bank robber offers some hilarious results, and when Curly falls into a tub of plaster, prepare to laugh. And don't forget the welcome comic antics of Dudley Dickerson.

Viewed together, however, "A Gem of a Jam" doesn't add up. The bank robber plot is dropped in favor of making Curly look like a ghost. There is not much of a cohesive whole to this film; modern viewers may cue past moments of sluggishness for genuine laughs.

Some funny moments, but not a Stooge classic. 6 out of 10.

I think that this short was the beginning of the decline for stooge director/writer Del Lord, who had a string of classic stooge shorts like A Plumbing We Will Go, Hoi Polloi, Cash and Carry, No Census No Feeling, Cactus Makes Perfect, They Stooge to Conga and Higher Than a Kite but his writing skills is mediocre at best, and I actually think that this was also the first stooge short which Hugh McCollum started producing on his own.

The boys appear to be doctors but they are janitors working the night shift and there's a funny scene when Curly swallows a goldfish and Moe and Larry try to catch the fish with a fishing pole and when one of the bad guys gets shot and they make the stooges operate and they wounded bad guy falls outside the window and the bad guys flee only to get caught at the end of the short.

The first half is hilarious but the second half loses its steam and I think that this short is one of Top 20 worst stooge shorts with Curly in it.

Larry, Curly, and Moe are three incompetent cleaners working the offices of Doctors Hart-Burns and Belcher. Gangsters come in after their boss got shoot by the cops. They mistake the Stooges for doctors. It's a very familiar mistaken identity premise. They get their gags in. It's non-stop and that's great. The hands bit is utterly stupid and Stoogely great.

This is my all-time favorite Three Stooges episode with Curly. In this one, our heroes play janitors at a doctor's office and get mistaken for real doctors when gangsters arrive and ask them to help their wounded henchman. A lot of hilarious mishaps in this one, when Curly swallows a goldfish and Moe and Larry had to fish for it literally! Also, when they were 'operating' on the gangster, and when Curly falls into cement and Dudley Dickerson's screaming reaction! There's never a dull moment in this one! Shemp has always been my favorite Stooge, and Curly is my second.

But I do suggest you watch the uncensored version on video. Because whenever The Three Stooges are shown on AMC, they cut certain scenes out on account of 'violence', or it's 'racist', 'too-suggestive-that-kids-might-try-that'. Man, political correction sure has gone overboard. Either way, Gem of a Jam is the funniest Curly episode, catch it on video or on TV. My favorite Curly episode is 'Gem of a Jam', My favorite Shemp episode is 'Sing a Song of Six Pants', and my favorite Joe Besser episode is 'Guns a Poppin'. The Three Stooges are always fun to watch no matter what.