Pardon My Scotch

Funny Three Stooges short has them in various situations over the span of its quick running time. They begin as clueless carpenters who are trying to install a new door (this routine is one of the best they ever did, and Moe explained in his memoirs that he actually broke his ribs doing a real fall from a table that gets sawed in two ... amazingly, he still managed to rise up and finish the shot before collapsing in pain!). Then the Stooges are mistaken for pharmacists, who inadvertently concoct a beverage that gets bought by a booze salesman. In the end they find themselves at one of those high class parties where they just don't fit in, causing riotous mayhem. *** out of ****

So many of the Stooge projects run into each other. After all, formula and consistency is part of the game.

That's why comments on then simply will identify something unique to that one: in this case, the injury from a stunt. These guys must have been completely used up physically by the time they left us.

Here's the one thing I'll ask you to look for. In the midst of other hilarity, the guys sit down to a ritzy meal in their kilts. Curly does the roll-dance. That's where you stick forks into two dinner rolls and do a dance with them. This was invented by Chaplin in "Goold Rush." It was huge hit in its day, but I've found it to be a sort of tune that future comics can interpret in their own way. Johnny Depp and Robert Downey did amazing commentary variations on this.

And Curly does here. It is only a couple seconds.

Curly was the Stooge most like his real personality. Most of what you see in the shorts in him is stuff he just naturally did without planning or rehearsal. This little dance is clumsy and inept in precisely the way he was. This is followed by a bit where the rolls (actually a substituted larger one) move from becoming feet to a mouth, so when Curly tries to bit a sandwich, it bites him first.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

This Three Stooges short, revolving around the then-topical Prohibition theme, is neatly divided into two sections, each seen before in superior Laurel & Hardy efforts – the boys at work from THE FINISHING TOUCH (1928) and BUSY BODIES (1933) and the dinner-table mayhem recalling FROM SOUP TO NUTS (1928).

As usual, The Three Stooges find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time and here, told to mind the chemist's counter for a while, concoct an impromptu "explosive" beverage for a paying customer who, happening to be a down-on-his-luck alcohol dealer, sees a reversal of his fortunes in marketing The Stooges' new drink! It's a passable enough star vehicle but the stars' typical schtick is rather unsympathetic, and gets repetitive pretty quick.

Many years ago, I read a book by Moe Howard and it was all about his days with the Three Stooges. One part that surprised me was Moe saying that of the three, he suffered the worst injuries making their shorts. And, if you don't believe this, watch "Pardon My Scotch". IMDB indicates that with the table bit, Moe was seriously injured...breaking ribs and suffering a concussion. Yet, like a trooper, he continued with the scene! Watch the bit...and you'll wince as you realize it's no trick...it's real!

As for the plot, the boys work for a pharmacist. A client comes in asking for some medicine but the pharmacist isn't in...so these idiots decide to make their own concoction! The resulting mixture should have killed the customer but he likes it...thinking it's an excellent sort of whiskey! Suddenly, they find themselves in the bootleg liquor business...which is lousy timing as Prohibition had been repealed a few months earlier and liquor is now legal.

Much of the film takes place when the boys are invited to a big society dinner. What takes place there is exactly what you'd expect, though it was nice to see Billy Gilbert in a supporting role here.

Overall, a silly film. Not among there very best but a decent and enjoyable outing that even non-Stooge fans might like.

Being in Three Stooges' movies posed more physical injuries to the actors involved than probably any other long running movie series. In August 1935, "Pardon My Scotch," Moe sustained some serious injuries falling off a table.

The Three Stooges are carpenters in "Pardon My Scotch" when they're hired to hang a door inside a drug store as its owner prepares to convert it to a liquor store just as Prohibition is ending. In the scene, Moe is standing on a table working on a wall while he calls for a board to be cut. Larry and Curly place the board lengthways on the same table Moe is on and cut it with an electric saw. Once finished, unbeknownst to them, they had cut the table in two. The studio prop technicians designed the table to collapse inwards. But during filming the table's side where Moe stood failed to drop. As seen in the final cut, Moe lands full force on the upright edge of the table on his rib cage, and hits his head on the floor in the process. He heroically continues the scene, standing up, speaking his line, and slapping the two in the face before, not seen on the film, he passes out. Moe was rushed to the hospital where he suffered several broken ribs as well as a concussion. The production paused for a few days before Moe was able to return to the set. The Stooges picked up where he left off, filming the scene from a different angle to make the edit seamless. In a similar scene scripted years later for another movie, Moe insisted a stunt man perform the fall from the table.

The title "Pardon My Scotch," a variable of the phrase 'Pardon My French,' follows The Three Stooges as they're heralded by a liquor distributor who's impressed by their willy-nilly concoction of a cocktail based on a combination of several potent ingredients they made at the drug store. The so-called scotch has the distributor honoring the Stooges, dressed in kilts, at a formal reception as he introduces the drink for his guests to taste. For entertainment, Billy Gilbert as Signor Louis Cantino belts out an opera tune. To shut him up the trio flick grapes and a banana in his mouth, a gag used in later Stooges' shorts.

"Pardon My Scotch" was the first film the 1850s song 'Listen to the Mocking Bird' is heard in a Stooges opening credits. It quickly became their theme song. As a popular marching tune during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, a big fan of the song, described it "as sincere as the laughter of a little girl at play," apropos for the Stooges' adaptation.