A Ducking They Did Go

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!

One of My favorite Stooges shorts with Curly is none other than A-Ducking They Did Go! All appearing in this short are Lynton Brent, Vernon Dent, Bud Jamison, Cy Schindell, Victor Travers! There are so many funny parts here and the singing scene is really neat. This is a very hilarious short and I recommend it!

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.

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.

A Ducking We Will Go has the Three Stooges selling memberships in a phony duck hunting club at the behest of some conmen. Wouldn't you know the boys sell the memberships to practically the entire police force of a town and now really have to come through or duck for cover.

Most of this short subject is out in the woods with the hunters as the promised ducks fail to materialize so the boys have to improvise. There's a great gag with Moe and Larry as they slingshot decoys in the air that the hunters can shoot until Curly locates some real ducks.

Which sets up a very funny gag as the boys who've sunk their own rowboat now decide to get some ducks. In particular Curly has some problems with some ducks who decide to fight guns with water. It really gets hilarious as he's surrounded by spraying ducks.

This short particularly shows Curly's comic genius, don't miss it.

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.