No Dough Boys

The Three Stooges' 180 short films that Columbia Pictures produced are broken down into several categories. One such category was the movies they made during World War Two relating to the conflict. These parodies, classified as 'war films,' included November 1944's "No Dough Boys" The Stooges are hired as models for a magazine shoot where they're dressed up in Japanese Army uniforms.

During their lunch break Curly borrows a sight joke from Laurel in his movies with Oliver Hardy in 1937 "Way Out West" and 1938's "Block-Heads," where he used his hand to smoke a make-believe pipe. Going to a nearby diner for a quick bite, they find themselves fending off the restaurant owner's physical threats. In their escape they stumble upon a Nazi spy den, where they're treated like royalty.

The Stooges and their producers weren't exactly the most politically correct filmmakers during the war. The first word in the title, "No Dough Boys," refers to the Japanese-Americans loyalty oath the United States government subjected those confined in relocation camps to take. Confusion existed between two questions which many answered with 'no's.' Called the "no-no boys," they were moved to the more secure Tule Lake camp in California. The term 'Dough Boys' harkened back to the nickname U. S. Army World War One soldiers were called. In "No Dough Boys," the Stooges had the misfortune of a grand mix-up when they were instantly pegged as the enemy when a newspaper coincidentally ran a story of three Japanese soldiers who had survived a submarine sinking, and were believed to be roaming the area.

Actor Vernon Dent plays his usual Stooges' 'war movie' Nazi. His character Hugo realizes pretty quickly the three are not Japanese. He asks them to entertain three German female guests, including Celia Zweiback (Christine McIntyre). They immediately perform acrobatics stunts, a routine Moe, Larry and their then third member Shemp had performed on the vaudeville stage years earlier.