Three Sappy People

Three Sappy People is a favorite of mine due to Lorna Gray's performance. She reminded me of a woman I knew a few years back who was a spitting image of her in this short.

The Three Stooges play three inept phone repairmen. During their attempt to fix the switchboard, they are then mistaken for the psychiatrists in the office they are doing work in. Due to Curly's friend/wife/dog Gertie "expecting any minute", they decide to portray the 3 psychiatrists named Ziller, Zeller and Zoller to make money to help Gertie. Fortunately for The Stooges, these three psychiatrists are known for their unorthodox methods.

The patient in question is Sherry Rumsford (Gray) who is the young, restless and vivacious wife of J. Rumsford Rumsford (Don Beddoe) who wants her wanderlust sated. The boys run amok at the party and at the dinner table hoping they can cure Sherry and collect.

The star of this episode aren't any of the Stooges but Gray. The then 22-year old actress is absolutely infectious whether she's talking, laughing or parking her car INSIDE the mansion. She has a devil-may-care attitude that is very appealing. Ann Doran, playing a countess who Curly annoys, is also a standout. I found her very attractive. Other Three Stooges' regulars such as Bud Jamison (playing a butler) and Richard Fiske (playing a guest) are also in the cast.

While not one of their elite shorts, Three Sappy People is still quite good. I never get tired of watching Lorna Gray and Ann Doran in this one.

You want insane. You got it. The Stooges hit their stride with ultra comedy film shorts like this, thanks to writer Clyde Bruckman, who let it roll, taking every opportunity to make it as bananas as possible.

Another case of mistaken identity, which fit Moe, Larry and Curly's style. They play phone repairmen mistaken(?) for distinguished psychiatrists? Introducing Drs. Z. Ziller. X. Zeller and Y. Zoller?

Mission: Cure(?) wealthy Mr. Rumford's (Don Beddoe) wife of being NUTS. Fact of the matter, everyone is nuts here. Ann Doran, a fabulous character actress, steals the show playing the Countess. Just watch her face. Bud Jamison is right at home as the poker face butler, from the school of James Finlayson who played off Laurel and Hardy. This features one of the BEST food fights the Stooges ever got themselves into, although behind the scenes actress Lorna Gray (who plays the dippy wife) claims she was hit so hard by a cream puff it partially lodged in her throat. The casualties of comedy.

Gloria Blondell, sister of actress Joan Bondell, plays the switchboard operator. Gloria co-starred in the LIFE OF RILEY tv show, later the voice of Walt Disney's Daisy Duck.

Fasten your seat belt for this party FEST. Always on remastered Columbia dvds, generally by decades, 30s, 40s and 50s episodes. Thanks to METV for running these golden oldies every Saturday.

This is one of my favorite Three Stooges episodes because it's wild from start-to-finish.

It begins in the first 30 seconds with a young wife driving her car through the house into the living room, where people are waiting to celebrate her birthday. Apparently, she's done stuff like this before.

The husband has had it, so he calls for psychiatrists: Dr. Ziller, Dr. Zeller and Dr. Zoller and "their methods are known to be peculiar." Well, the Stooges are phone repairmen who just happened to be fixing the switchboard at the doctors' office when the call comes in for help. Desperate, they take the job and pretend to be psychiatrists. Notice how often the Stooges wind up in situations like this, impersonating others?

Anyway, that gives you an idea about the insanity and this pure frenetic Three Stooges short which has a crazy woman and the farcial Stooges having a lot of fun together at the birthday party....at the funny expense of everyone else at the party. The dinner food-fight is a classic!

The Stooges are telephone repairmen mistaken for psychiatrists Ziller, Zeller, and Zoller. They are to treat Sherry (Lorna Gray), the wild and impetuous wife of a staid millionaire (Don Beddoe).

Watch the slapstick cream puff throwing climax carefully. Sherry (Lorna Gray) gets hits right in the mouth with a cream puff that actually lodges in her throat. She closes her eyes tightly, turns her head down and to the right, and appears to choke, which she did. Director Jules White immediately stopped the shot but the incident is still in the finished product. Moe Howard talks about it in his book about The Stooges and says that Lorna nearly died. Jules White was really frightened by it. But in an interview later in life, Lorna Gray said that she never felt like she was in any real danger and was upset about Jules White nearly spoiling the scene by cutting too soon. Still, watch the cream puff throwing closely and it's obvious that Lorna is definitely in actual distress before the scene cuts away.

I just watched this on MeTV on the regular Saturday afternoon-evening Stooge Fest.

In this great Stooges short we see a rare treasure indeed - worth many thousands of dollars today - a Springfield, Massachusetts-built 1928-1931 Rolls Royce Phantom I with left-hand drive. The car is an unusual one, in that the coach-builder apparently built the body into somewhat of a cabriolet - the top is longer than that of a roadster, but shorter than a full phaeton. The car appears to have only two doors, the normal Phantom I wire wheels have custom complete color-coded wheel covers, and the car is painted an unusual color (not black). Having built many detailed models of this chassis with several body styles, the example in this Stooges short makes it a treasure beyond the great humor that made seeing it possible.