Flat Foot Stooges

Fire Chief Kelly is the old-fashioned type, preferring horse-drawn fire engines "because there is nothing more thrilling than seeing....blah, blah, blah." I guess looks are more important than putting out the fire, eh Chief?

Anyway, after arguing with a salesman trying to get the old guy to switch to modern machinery, his daughter comes in with a trophy that the boys - Curly, Larry & Moe - won for selling the most tickets to a picnic.

We then get our first glance at the Stooges as firemen. As you can guess, they aren't exactly proficient in their job. We get a corny skit of them trying to put on their duds and then trying to hitch up the horses to get to a fire....only to discover it's an alarm clock ringing, not the fire bell. It's pretty lame stuff, not the greatest of Stooges humor.

The Stooges are told there's a prize for the best-looking horses at the picnic, and since there is no fire, the boys decide to take two horses, Annie and Fannie, to the Turkish baths in town. (Don't ask.) Next, the boys give the horses a rubdown. The horses lie on a table!

All of this silliness is interrupted when, all of the sudden, the scene changes to some crook (that previously-mentioned salesman) holding a can of TNT and trying to get into a building. He's spilling it and a duck following is eating the stuff! Except for cartoons, where else can you see insane things like this?

From this point on - the second half of the story - it gets better, with genuinely funny sight gags, like the duck laying eggs that explode, or the safety net to save a guy jumping from the ledge. It even gets suspenseful with a raging fire - at the firehouse! Overall, however, it's slightly below-average material. It's a little too silly and definitely too loud.

In the Stooges' final short of 1938, December's "Flat Foot," they revisit the fire house in their 35th short film. Shady salesman Mr. Reardon (character actor Dick Curtis in his film debut) drops a keg of dynamite inside the horse-driven fire truck because he's frustrated he was unable to sell the fire chief (Chester Conklin) a motorized vehicle. Meanwhile, the chief's daughter catches him in the act. She follows him upstairs at the firehouse, only to have both knocked out while a duck who's ingested the dynamite powder leaking from Reardon's keg lays an explosive egg at the window, setting off a fire. The Stooges as resident firemen, respond to the fire, thinking it's blocks away as they did in their earlier 1936's "False Alarm." They scamper away in their horse-drawn fire truck--without the horses but manned by a group of civilian volunteers-only to see their truck blow up.

Charley Chase was an efficient yet hasty director of the Three Stooges when filming their shorts. There's a couple of slipped lines said by Moe and Larry that the perceptive viewer can spot which Chase left in rather than reshoot. Larry also says Curly's trademark line, "I'm a victim of circumstance" for the first time. "Flat Foot Stooges," whose title was gleaned from the 1938 popular jazz song 'Flat Foot Floogee' by Slim and Slam, was filmed after "Three Little Sew and Sews," but released a month before. The tune 'Three Blind Mice' was first used in this Stooges' opening credits.

As the fire chief, actor Chester Conklin was a comedian in silent movies for Mack Sennett beginning in 1914, appearing in Charlie Chaplin's first short, "Making A Living." Chaplin and he became good friends for life, with Conklin acting alongside The Tramp in more than a dozen shorts as well as in 1935's "Modern Times" and 1940's "The Great Dictator." The 1950s were not kind to Conklin, who was unable to find work. He resorted during the holidays to play Santa Claus in a department store. He died in 1971 at 85, six years after his last film appearance, 1966's 'A Big Hand for the Little Lady.'

This goofy story has to remind you of OUR GANG/LITTLE RASCALS who had their own fire department where everything went haywire. The Stooges are now firemen at Engine Company Number One?

The station, run by chief Kelly (Chester Conklin) is falling apart, and the fire engine is still pulled by horses? Crooked salesman Reardon (played by tough guy Dick Curtis) wants to sell Kelly some new stuff, but he won't budge. Without too much surprise, the crooked creep sabotages the fire engine.

A fire breaks out and what the heck are the Stooges gonna' do? I agree with the last reviewer, Charley Chase, who directed and wrote this comedy, had the Keystone Cops in mind, now acting as firemen. Moe, Larry and Curly give it their best shot ever. Both Chester Conklin and his brother Heinie (who plays a traffic cop) began their careers in silent films as members of the Keystone Cops. It all makes sense.

Footnote; this was the first time Larry would use Curly's famous line, "I'm a victim of circumstance!"

If you're a western buff, you'll recognize Dick Curtis, who made a career of playing villains to the max. He appeared in several westerns shot at the same studio, the perfect scoundral for the Stooges.

Just plain crazy. Always on dvd released via Columbia, generally by decades, 30s, 40s and 50s episodes. Some of the dvd boxes rely on themes and combine various episodes. Thanks much to METV for running these oldies Saturdays.

FLAT FOOT STOOGES is a very weird plot. How did they come up with the idea of a duck laying an egg with gunpowder to start a fire. The stooges also play firemen in SOUP TO NUTS, FALSE ALARMS, & IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD. Watch one of those films instead.

** out of 4 stars.

In all honesty, this episode was another one of the Stooges's funniest installments. Based on some of the reviews I found on IMDb, it's also surprisingly underrated.

Charley Chase is definitely no Del Lord or Jules White. But, helming the chairs of writer and director for this short, he created perhaps one of the liveliest Three Stooges episodes ever made. Whoever said that this episode wasn't funny must have cotton for brains, because I found it to be hilarious. The comedy landed with amazing fluency and timing throughout the short, and the plot tied together nicely. While I do admit that there may have been a sense of disorganization in the short, Chase nevertheless made it all work and actually made something fun out of it all.

The performances of the cast were as entertaining and spritely as ever, if I may say. I mean, yes, the cast often spent a majority of the time interrupting or talking over each other, sometimes the Stooges even corrected themselves with what they're saying. In the long run, though, it made their performances funny, and it enhanced them with a human sense of accuracy. The Stooges themselves still had the best moments out of everyone, and it looked like they were having great time working on this short.

In the end, "Flat Foot Stooges" was another member of the Three Stooges filmography that provided a really great time.