Restless Knights

A medieval setting is the time and place for this Three Stooges comedy, not one of their best but still worth seeing. Moe, Larry and Curley as musketeers must come to the rescue of a young Queen who is abducted. The Stooges engage each other in a bizarre wrestling sequence, which is probably the standout sequence of this short. A recent re-visitation of RESTLESS KNIGHTS left me appreciating it more than I previously have. When attempting to rate so many similar Stooge films such as these, it's often difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. As a side note, Walter Brennan appears early on as the Stooges' dying father. **1/2 out of ****

This is one of those stooges films that starts off with a bang(the scenes with Walter Brennan playing the boys father, the wrestling match in the castle)then starts to run out of steam after about 8 minutes and doesn't pack as many ROFL moments to close out the short that it started with.

5/10

This review is of the sixth consecutive Three Stooges short made by Columbia Pictures. As their previous short-Horses' Collars-was their first western spoof, this one is the first set in Medieval times. It seems their dying father (Walter Brennan in his second Stooges appearance) has revealed to his sons (Moe, Larry, and Curley as his name was spelled at the time) that they're of royal blood and assigns them to protect their queen. I'll stop there and just say that while there are plenty of highly amusing scenes here, very few of them are non-stop hilarious and the end is a bit abrupt. In fact, maybe they could have added 15 minutes to bring more of a logical story to term. Still, Restless Knights is enjoyable enough and for that, I recommend it. P.S. This isn't the first time he boys got a triple slap on film since their previous leader, Ted Healy, has done that several times before to them.

Restless Knights (1935)

** (out of 4)

After hearing about a plot to assassinate the Queen, the Three Stooges becomes knights but trouble follows. I think this is one of the weakest shorts that feature the original group of Stooges. I think the writing is pretty lazy, which leads to extended scenes that just aren't very funny. The wrestling matches are deadly dull and pretty much kills everything that follows. Even the slapstick humor is pretty dull.

Now available in Columbia's 2-disc set, which features over 20 classic shorts.

As a DVD/VHS collector, the most notable aspect of this Stooges film is seeing famous movie actor Walter Brennan in an uncredited role as the Stooges father! He opens up the story with a deathbed story. Frankly, I wouldn't have known that was him if I hadn't seen his name listed in the credits here on IMDb. Looking at the movie for a second time, sure enough: it's a younger Brennan with a fake beard but the same somewhat-squeaky voice!

Anyway, this particular Three Stooges short, as someone else here pointed out, is set back in medieval times, but in all practical purposes could have been set in any time. Most of the film is comprised of several extended physical gags.

For example, there is a wrestling scene which is fairly long - just the boys showing the queen how the sport is (not) done. Most of the gags aren't all that great except for the ending when one of the Stooges is flung in the air onto the queen's throne.

The boys, by the way, call themselves "The Duke Of Mixture," "The Baron Of Brains" and "The Fife Of Drum." That sort of gives you an idea of the humor in this one: passable, but not laugh-out-loud humor..