Who Done It?

Another good Stooge short!Christine McIntyre is so lovely and evil and the same time in this one!She is such a great actress!The Stooges are very good and especially Shemp and Larry!This to is a good one to watch around Autumn time!

This is apparently one of Shemp's first shorts with the Stooges. (This excludes his much earlier vaudeville years with the team). But the threesome's comedic timing is at its honed best here. Aside from the intense slapstick scenes, there are others more subtle, but just as funny. Watch Larry when Shemp asks him to look at the camera for a snapshot. Or watch the real object prompting Moe's exclamation, "Oh...highly polished mahogany!"

Emil Sitka is at his bewildered goofiest. And the goon may look scary, but he's somehow funny. He seems as frustrated and perplexed with the Stooges as are "regular" people in other shorts.

For Shemp aficionados, this is a must have episode. It won't disappoint.

An ultra-nervous old man, "Mr. Goodrich," terrorized by the news that a gang is stalking the city and prominent citizens are disappearing, really panics when someone throws a rock through his window with a message tied to it, saying "You will be next!"

He calls the detective agency wondering where are the guys he asked for earlier. Of course, it's the Stooges, who couldn't respond because had come into the office, robbed them and tied them up. Some detectives! The moment poor Mr. Goodrich hangs up the phone and says, "I feel safer already," a monster-type goon named "Nico" appears out of a secret panel in the room and chokes him unconscious. We next find out that his trusted employees are anything but that. Now these crooks have to deal with the "detectives" that are coming by the house for Mr. Goodrich.

Some of the gags, like Moe and Larry's wrinkles, are getting a bit old, but some of them will provoke laughs if I see them 100 times. I always laugh at Shemp trying to be a flirt, as he does here with Mr. Goodrich's niece, in a classic routine with a long, accordion-like camera lens. The act he puts on when he's poisoned is always funny, too. Shemp was so good that I didn't mind he was taking the great Curly's place.

Larry, Moe, Curly/Shemp were always great in the chase scenes, in which monsters or crooks or both are chasing them around a house. That's the last six minutes in here. At times, such as this film,

One the best Shemp's episode, Moe, Larry and Shemp as private detective has a hard assignment to protect a millionaire Mr. Goodrich played by the clumsy Emil Sitka, the man disappears, the trio now try out makes a fully investigation to reach in some clue, helped by Goodrich's niece as always Christina McIntyre, one the most funny sequence when Shemp is analyzing thru the camera on the table he lifts and finds Moe's face, what scene, between the physical humor oriented, a slapstick comedy, many weird and funny situations spreading all around including the famous blackout scene, my heroes are still funny than never!!

Resume:

First watch: 1972 / How many: 3 / Source: TV-DVD-R / Rating: 7.5

One of the very best Three Stooges shorts ever. A spooky house full of evil guys and "The Goon" challenge the Alert Detective Agency's best men. Shemp is in top form in the famous in-the-dark scene. Emil Sitka provides excellent support in his Mr. Goodrich role, as the target of a murder plot. Before it's over, Shemp's "trusty little shovel" is employed to great effect. This 16 minute gem moves about as fast as any Stooge's short and packs twice the wallop. Highly recommended.