Listen, Judge

Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Shemp Howard are door-to-door handymen. They are brought in front of Judge Henderson for chicken stealing. They escape the court and barges into a house to fix the doorbell. Of course, the boys' antics cause more damage. It turns out to be the judge's home and he's hosting a party for his political re-election.

There is general Stooges destruction. It's solid work for a Shemp Stooges short. I like the cake premise although I wish it could actually blow up. The room should at least be destroyed. I need some chasing around before the Stooges jump out the window. This is good standard work, but it could be more.

The Three Stooges has always been some of the many actors that I have loved. I love just about every one of the shorts that they have made. I love all six of the Stooges (Curly, Shemp, Moe, Larry, Joe, and Curly Joe)! All of the shorts are hilarious and also star many other great actors and actresses which a lot of them was in many of the shorts! In My opinion The Three Stooges is some of the greatest actors ever and is the all time funniest comedy team!

This is one of My favorite Three Stooges shorts. Its very funny. Vernon Dent is very good in this one. There are two other Three Stooges shorts called They Stooge to Conga and An Ache in Every Stake with Curly and they are arguably funnier! Emil Sitka, Kitty McHugh, John Hamilton, Chick Collins, George J. Lewis, Gil Perkins are all in this short! This is a very funny one and I recommend it!

First, this particular short is yet another splicing of three earlier shorts all with Curly. The courtroom scene is taken from "A Plumbing We Will Go", the fix the doorbell bits are from "They Stooge to Conga" where they inadvertently infiltrate a Nazi hideout, and then the cooking scenes are from "An Ache In Every Steak". What a mish mash! If during the years that the first three were made, such a concept had been presented, I'm sure it would have been rejected by everyone involved including the Stooges. But now, the lean, cold 1950's, everyone just wants to get this over with and get their money. Jules White is certainly to blame for all this since the man never did display a true sense of real comedy no matter who he was involved with directing, be it the Stooges or Buster Keaton during his fade out years. This short is so disjointed in storyline that an undergrad creative writing student would most likely flunk out if he handed in something as banal. Watch the originals and forget this one. No offense Moe, Larry and Shemp but you really should have known better.

As I'm sure every stooge fan knows, this short creatively combines plot elements from three different Curly shorts & the results are one of the best stooge shorts ever made & one of Shemp's best performances as a stooge.

Things starts off with the always capable Vernon Dent (the greatest Three Stooges foil) playing a judge who oversees the case of the boys being brought up on charges of chicken stealing. I especially enjoyed Vernon's line "I'm not going to make these poor unfortunates the victims of your prejudice & guesswork. You're free boys." Then of course, a live chicken comes flying out of Shemp's jacket.

After that the short takes plot elements from "An Ache in Every Stake" and "They Stooge to Conga" as the boys destroy the house of some poor, unfortunate lady trying to fix the doorbell then get the idea to fix her dinner. Special mention must be made of Shemp's turkey stuffing scene which I thought was equal to Curly's from "An Ache", particularly his method of soaking the bread & all his little ad-libs (this one's got pits).

Even better is Moe's reaction when the turkey comes out of the oven: "Listen, if the cake in that oven turns out like this, you're going to be the next one to broil in it. And I'm going to baste you with nitric acid."

Overall, a great reworking of tried & true stooge material and a film any lover of the stooges should enjoy.

"Listen, Judge" is a sort-of remake of the Stooges' 1941 film "An Ache in Every Stake." This film features tried and true Stooge gags, along with a few surprises.

The Stooges are in court before a judge (Vernon Dent) and are released from vagrancy and chicken stealing charges. The Stooges get into their usual trouble after getting off the hook, and the judge is not pleased with getting a chicken in his face after releasing them! Fixer-uppers, they make a mess of Kitty McHugh's home -- and then find the judge is a guest at dinner! Will he recognize them?

"Listen, Judge" presents stalwart gags, including stuffing a turkey stooge-style. One twist: after Shemp puts the obligatory "can of tomatoes" inside the turkey, Moe removes the can's label and then puts the can back inside (Moe says, "paper in stuffing! Ick!")

One surprising gag occurs in this Edward Bernds'- directed film. When Shemp tests the doorbell the Stooges have "fixed," he is charged with electricity. Moe twists a bulb into his Shemp's ear, and the bulb lights up. Larry shorts out Shemp by twisting a screwdriver into his other ear (you can see the screwdriver twist into Shemp's ear by several inches). This is a surprise gag for Bernds, who normally shied away from extreme visual gags such as this(director Jules White tended to go for the cruder gags).

Another surprise is the appearance of John Hamilton, best known as Perry White in the "Adventures of Superman" TV series, which began production around this time. It is his only appearance in a Stooges film.

Good laughs, and a few surprises, gives this film a lift. 7 out of 10.