No Dough Boys

Moe, Larry and Curly don't look like Doughboys (old slang for "American soldiers"), they are dressed as Japanese soldiers for a photo session. Grabbing a quick lunch at a diner, they stuff their mouths with bread, and sound like they are talking gibberish-- the owner mistakes them for Japanese spies. The Stooges run away, and wind up in a house with German spies. They are introduced to 3 beautiful German ladies: Miss Zweiback ("twice-baked bread"), Miss Schwarzbrot ("rye bread") and Miss Pumpernickel ("dark rye bread"). The Three Stooges quip that the ladies are "well bread" (well bred). Trying to convince them they are real Japanese soldiers, the Stooges do some "oriental" balancing acts, and fall down a lot. The real Japanese soldiers show up, and the Three Stooges knock everyone out in a hilarious fight scene. With the Three Stooges around, America is still safe for democracy.

It's WW II and the boys are actors posing as Japanese soldiers for a magazine ad. On a break from shooting they stumble into a Nazi hideout where the commandant is waiting for the arrival of three Japanese soldiers and thinks that the stooges are them. The boys end up getting the best of both the Germans and Japanese and save the world.

Obviously, this can be an uncomfortable short to watch, due to the boys' broad Japanese mannerisms and dialect. But in 1944, Japan was the enemy in real life, and was tirelessly mocked. Just as in The Yoke's on Me, the writers had no problem with portraying Japanese as unintelligent buffoons. (One difference that makes that movie less acceptable is that the characters in it were American citizens who had "escaped" from a relocation center.) I even recognized the same actor who was in both movies--the younger guy with the Shemp-styled haircut.

All that said, this is an hilarious short: fast paced with gags and plenty of stooge humor galore. Putting it in the context of the time, you can get a lot of laughs out of it.

This is a great film to look at for a couple of reasons. One is the the acrobatic act, which the boys used to perform in their vaudeville days. The other is Moe's crazy dialect. This was definitely an underrated talent of Moe's and he really got a chance to showcase it in this short.

No Dough Boys (1944)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

The Three Stooges are on a photo shoot, which has then dressed up as Japanese soldiers. During a break they go to eat when they're mistaken as the real thing by the dinner owner. Soon afterwards they end up in the house of a German spy where all sorts of chaos follows.

NO DOUGH BOYS isn't the greatest Stooges short but it's decent enough to where fans should at least get a few laughs out of it. The first two segments dealing with the photo shoot and the restaurant are rather lame without too many laughs but things pick up during the finale where the boys end up running into the real Japanese soldiers who escaped a war ship.

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.