Crime on Their Hands

Larry, Moe, and Shemp are janitors in a newspaper office. The big news story of the day is the stolen Punjab Diamond. The boys are desperate to be reporters. They get an anonymous tip from the editor's phone and the caller is shot. They decide to run with the clue themselves.

Shemp is simply not Curly. It doesn't have the same fun no matter how hard he tries. It's the look. It's his personality. It's his mannerisms. It's impossible to pinpoint. My hat's off to the boys. They try really hard but it is still not enough. Shemp Stooges are the lesser Stooges.

This starts off like a Class B film noir with the following lines:

"It's the Punjab diamond, the fourth-largest in the world and it's all ours," says the head crook called "Dapper, the familiar Kenneth MacDonald. "What a hunk of ice," says another Stooges regular during this era: Christine McIntrye, who plays "Bea."

"Yeah, hot ice baby," replies Dapper. "Hotter than the lid of a potbellied stove." When an assistant asks when he gets his take, Dapper slaps him and says, "I said the rock was hot, didn't I? We're not peddling this till things cool off awhile." Dapper knocks him flat and the guy leaves, vowing revenge that "I'll get mine and you'll get yours, big shot!"

That sets up the Stooges' involvement in the case. They're janitors at the newspaper office but they also are wannabe-reporters who want to crack this "Punjab diamond case." When the boss is out and the phone rings, they answer. On the other end is that sore crook who is squealing. They get a tip to go to Squid McGuffey's Cafe. Off they go....these new crime reporters.

I always love it when some huge gorilla somehow gets involved with these Stooges' stories. Here, the ape is at the aforementioned café. Put him into the mix with a café full of tough mugs and sailors plus the thieves and our three goofy heroes and you have a wild story. This was full of good Three Stooges slapstick material. I miss Curly but I've never had any complaints about Shemp. He was a funny guy, too. In fact, I think the poor guy took more physical abuse than Curly. In this episode, even the crooks wince as the abuse the poor guy takes and Moe and Larry try to get the diamond out of his stomach!

If you don't laugh right out loud at the end of this, you shouldn't be watching The Three Stooges. This is great stuff.

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 Three Stooges short is an excellent one and is actually quite violent for its time. Kenneth MacDonald and Christine McIntyre are good together in this one and also in their separate scenes. Cy Schindell was also good. The Stooges are as funny as ever! There is another Three Stooges short very similar like this one called Hot Ice which it has an alternate ending.

The Three Stooges were in top form in this short, which is 17 minutes of non-stop laughs. All of the Stooges are great, but Shemp makes it absolutely hilarious. The scenes in which Shemp talks back to Moe in the newspaper office, answers the wrong number on the phone, breaks his straw hat trying to copy Moe and Larry, and watches Moe and Larry eat the peanuts are classics. Moe and Larry continue the hard laughs when Larry is trying to tell Moe about the gorilla in the next room only for Moe to keep pounding him, and when Moe finally sees the gorilla and screams like mad. These scenes and the fact that Christine McIntyre in that black dress may be the most drop-dead gorgeous image ever to appear on film make this an absolute must-see in the Stooges catalog.