Calling All Curs

This silly short owes much to Curly, due to the fact he loved dogs. He may have suggested some of the schtick, and good for him.

This time the Stooges are vets at an animal hospital, in charge of taking care of wealthy Mrs. Bedford's (Isabel La Mal) poodle called "Garcon," French for boy. Reporters (aka dognappers), lead by Lynton Brent (Duke) kidnap Garcon and want cash. LOTS. Doctors Moe, Larry and Curly have no choice but disguise another pooch as Garcon to try to fool the old lady. Doesn't work, and its hilarious stuff.

Plenty of gags, including the most famous where all the dogs are sitting around a dinner table! This bit may have been suggested by Curly, it's wild enough.

Isabel La Mal, playing a role like Margaret Dumont opposite the Marx Brothers, appeared in many film classics. Brent, who later became a noted writer, makes a good villain. Look for noted bit actress Ethelreda Leopold, playing a nurse, who even appeared in DYNASTY on tv. Dorothy Moore, known for playing Blondie's sister in the BLONDIE series, plays a nurse.

Another gem by the team of Elwood Ullman and Searle Kramer, under the watchful eye of producer and director Jules White.

Note, one scene filmed at 5600 Fernwood Avenue in Hollywood, off Sunset Boulevard, long time apartment buildings.

Always on Columbia dvd, generally by decades, 30s, 40s and 50s episodes. Thanks to METV for showing these oldies every Saturday, non stop.

Calling All Curs (1939)

*** (out of 4)

Funny Three Stooges short has them running a pet hospital where they get a prized poodle owned by a very rich woman. A couple men pretend to be reporters and take off with the dog so the Stooges must try and track them down or go to jail. The opening few minutes of this short is pretty much a build-up joke that really doesn't work as it gets no laughs but after this it's all comedy as we get one great joke after another as well as some snappy dialogue. One of the highlights of the film is when the boys take the reporters on a tour of the hospital where we get to see various dogs who are suffering from various problems ranging from eating out of the trash to one who like to drink beer. The pay-off to the trash gag is priceless as poor Moe takes one for the team. Other funny jokes include a maid sucking the hair off a dog, the final fight with the bad guys and another good sequence at the dinner table. If you think about it too hard you'll wonder how anyone as dumb as the Stooges could become vets but just sit back and enjoy all the laughs.

Our three favorite goofs are veterinarians, if you can believe it, and are still the same slap- happy saps who are silly but fun to watch. We get sight gags right from the start as Curly swallows soap and then blows bubbles out of his mouth.

Anyway, after a bunch of typical Stooges clowning, mostly corny stuff, their three beautiful assistants prepare them with surgical clothing, and we see that it's a black poodle who will be their prey, er subject for operation. Apparently, "Garcon" belongs to a rich lady named "Bedford" and their "operation" is simply taking a thorn out of the dog.

Later, the boys give two reporters a humorous tour of the facility, with the drunken lap dog, the garbage can moocher with a bad case of "scavengeritus," and other corny comments. After the tour, the reporters turn out to be "dognappers, taking "Garcon" and holding him for a ransom.

There are many Stooge-like sight gags in this short and some still made me laugh, even though I've seen them hundreds of times. I liked Moe going through the intercom, the dogs all dressed with bibs sitting at the dinner table, the dog-bone sandwich biting Curly, the maid "scalping" Garcon, Moe being used as a punching bag, etc.

Goofy? Yes, but still funny. In fact, if you wanted to show someone what the Stooges were all about, this one would provide a good demonstration.

Larry, Curly, and Moe are three bumbling surgeons, animal surgeons. Reporters show up to do a story on the boys who turn out to be dognappers coming for Mrs. Bedford's prized dog. This is the silliest of premise. It's a lot of dogs and beautiful ladies. Mostly, it is so ridiculous that it couldn't help being fun. It does need a dog stampede running over the boys.

In August 1939, the Three Stooges' 41st short, "Calling All Curs," two supporting cast members stand out with interesting backgrounds. The film offered one of the rare times the Stooges held a respectable profession, this as veterinarians. One of their patients, a poodle, belongs to a rich socialite who is kidnapped by hoodlums posing as newspaper reporters for ransom. Not wanting to upset its owner, the Stooges disguise a similarly-built dog with fake fur. When they delivered the dog to its wealthy owner, her maid played by Libby Taylor, while vacuuming sucks up the pooch's coat of fakery, revealing the mutt. Back in 1933, Taylor was a struggling actress in Harlem theatres when starlet Mae West offered a position as her personal maid whenever she wasn't working. West steered her in several roles, including the part as Tia's (West) hairdresser in 1933's "I'm No Angel," 1939's "Babes in Arms" with Judy Garland, 1941's "Santa Fe Trail" with Errol Flynn, and 1951's "Two Tickets to Broadway" with Ann Miller.

Actor Lynton Brent, who played one of the two disguised reporters who kidnapped the poodle, later made his mark in literature. After appearing in 300-plus films during his twenty-year acting career, he turned to his typewriter, churning out mostly Westerns. Brent's niche was injecting into his stories a strong dose of sex appeal with strikingly beautiful women. His book titles give a hint of the eroticism in them, including 'Violent Love Stalks the Plains,' 'Silent Sex Trail,' 'Passionate Peril at Fort Tomahawk,' and his 1965 classic, 'Lesbian Gang,' which the gay community has enthusiastically embraced.

"Calling All Curs" was one of Curly's favorite Stooges films because, as a lover of dogs, he had the opportunity to be around canines all day. This included the hilarious scene where several dogs are sitting at a long adults' dinning table ready to chow down on plates full of bones.