A Ducking They Did Go

You often wonder, where the heck the Stooge writers came up with ideas? Andrew Bennison, who went onto write POT OF GOLD for James Stewart, put this one together. Maybe he went duck hunting, or knew someone who did? Go figure!

Moe, Larry and Curly, on the run from the cops as usual, happen to bump into some shady characters who claim they need salesmen to sell memberships in their duck hunting club. The catch is it's a BIG scam and they'll wind up as the fall guys, but what have they got to lose? Amazingly(!) they sell memberships to the police chief (Bud Jamison, of course) and the mayor.

The downside -- they now have to find some ducks for the guys to shoot??? I agree with the last reviewer, it's Curly's show once again, just insane. The guys staked out in the woods in hilarious, thanks to director Del Lord. According to notes, Columbia upped the budget and managed to build a duck pond for authenticity. True, in many of comedies, the backgrounds, even the sets, were above average, no doubt borrowed from major films.

Lynton Brent makes a good villain. He looks the part. Also catch Vernon Dent and western star James Millican as a duck hunter, many other familiar faces.

Always on remastered dvd/Columbia, generally by decades, 30s, 40s and 50s episodes. Thanks always to METV for making Saturdays Stooge mania.

Watching a Three Stooges' film today gives a great insight to the historic times these short movies were made. Recovering from the 1937 recession, the country was still reeling from jobs losses when April 1939's "A Ducking They Did Go" was released.

The Stooges' 38th film in the series opens with the three experiencing extreme hunger from not finding employment when they spot a truck full of watermelons. In their attempt to steal one, they are pursued by a police officer (William Irving) before they escape into an office of two shady businessmen who hire them to sell memberships to a duck hunting club. They end up signing the city's police chief, his officers and the mayor to the club, resulting in a hilarious duck hunt where the Stooges have to catapult flying decoys to fool the members of the foray.

At this juncture of the series, Curly Howard dominates in several memorable scenes, with director Del Lord and his writers including an elongated sequence of him, who 'pied pipered' a flock of ducks into a pond for the hunters to shoot. Curly's own battle with a rogue duck, whose expertise is spraying water out of his beak, is priceless. Columbia Pictures spent an inordinate amount of money (for a Three Stooges film) by constructing an artificial pond inside one of its sound stages as well as hiring more than a dozen people to populate its cast. Not knowing how to conclude "A Ducking They Did Go," producer Jules White went back into the studio vault and dug up the ending clip from the Stooges' 1936 "A Pain in the Pullman" to show the three, running from the hunters' wrath, jump over a hedge onto wild horses, galloping away.

This is another wild-and-crazy Three Stooges flick but - joke-wise - not one of their best because most of the gags are just too corny, and a couple of them were repetitive (like a duck spitting a stream of water at Curly). Nonetheless, that doesn't mean it still wasn't fun to watch and crazy things were happening almost the whole time. The guys stealing a watermelon and passing it like a football started the looniness off quickly.

In addition to stealing, which they readily admit they do, the Stooges are trying to make some money and they wind up selling memberships The Canvas Back Duck Club, which really doesn't exist, just run by a couple of scam artists looking to find some dumb salesmen to make some quick cash for them. Enter Curly, Larry and Moe.

Dressed like hunters, the boys go out selling. This is a little louder than normal because The Stooges are obnoxious salesmen.

Bud Jamieson, a favorite of Stooges fans, plays the Chief Of Police and an uncredited actor plays the Mayor. If a real-life town had these two bozos running things, it would be in big trouble.

The real fun starts when the boys lead these guys into the duck blinds to go hunting. Then it gets pretty funny.

Curly, Larry, and Moe are hungry and try to steal melons from the back of a truck. It goes badly and they run from a policeman. They're hiding in an office building and happens upon a Duck hunting club hiring salesmen to sell memberships. The Stooges end up selling all the memberships to the cops including the chief. It's actually a scam and the con men leave with all the money. The boys are stuck with a lake with no ducks and restless policemen expecting ducks. It ends with the cut scene of them riding bulls into the sunset. I was only concerned with the scene of the policemen shooting up all the ducks. Thankfully, that happens off screen while the Stooges get bested by the ducks. I actually didn't know the riding off on the bulls are a cut scene but that joke makes a lot more sense now. This episode is perfectly Stooges with all of their hilarious flaws and physical humor.

Ducking They Did Go, A (1939)

*** (out of 4)

Decent short has the Three Stooges running into con men who convinces the boys to go out and sell memberships to a fake duck hunting club. The boys end up selling to a bunch of police so when they take them to the club they learn that there aren't any ducks so they must do their best to come up with some. This is yet another pretty good short that manages to have quite a few laughs even if the end result isn't one of the best in the series. There are several funny moments here but one of the highlights has to be when Curly accidentally shoots a hole in the boat they're in so Larry shoots another to let the water out. Another funny site is when Moe is bent over hunting not knowing there's a duck on his back, which of course Larry sees and tries to shoot. The start of the film deals with the boys stealing watermelons and getting caught. This early stuff isn't nearly as funny as we get some gags repeated from previous films (which granted, did happen a lot). Fans of the series will no doubt find this to be a funny one but if someone's new then they'd probably want to start off with one of the better classics.