Beer Barrel Polecats (1946) starring the Three Stooges - Moe, Larry and Curly

Beer Barrel Polecats is set during Prohibition, when purchasing beer in the U.S.A. was illegal—but it was still legal to make your own beer for your own personal use.  The Three Stooges (Moe, Larry, and Curly—Curly’s first short film made after his initial stroke) proceed to do that, and the first half of the film is quite funny, as all three of them add yeast to their batch of beer—with explosive results.  They finally manage to bottle all of their beer, and all’s well—until Curly tries to sell a bottle to an undercover police officer at black market prices—and end up going to jail.

Adding insult to inury, Curly tries to smuggle a small keg of beer into the jail with them ("Goiter!"), but as the Stooges are having their prison photos taken, the hot lights cause the beer to expand, and eventually explode, causing the warden (Three Stooges regular Vernon Dent) to greatly extend their sentences.  It’s at this point that the short film becomes rather disappointing.  This was the first Three Stooges short film to be made after Curly Howard’s first stroke, and he didn’t have the energy or the stamina to be working—so director Jules White decided to re-use footage from earlier Three Stooges short films (‘So Long, Mr. Chumps and The Sweet Pie and Pie) - and the editing is clumsy at best, and the film doesn’t flow very well.  The ending, however, is quite funny, with the Three Stooges finally being released 40 years later, and the aged Curly saying that the first thing he wants is a beer—resulting in Moe and Larry throwing him back into the prison.

Spooks! (1953) is a Three Stooges short film featuring Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Shemp Howard as three inept detectives who are hired to find Bea Bopper (Norma Randall), who has been kidnapped by mad scientist Dr. Jeckyl (Philip Van Zandt), who plans to transplant her brain into that of a gorilla.  The Three Stooges track them down, and enter the mad scientist’s hideout disguised as pie salesman, and encounter the mad Dr. Jeckyl, his henchman and the gorilla—and with the gorilla’s aid, they rescue the girl and escape.

One noteworthy point is that Spooks! is one of only two Three Stooges short films that were released in 3-D, and the short film makes the most of this, with the mad scientist aiming a needle directly at the audience, throwing pies, etc.  It has several cute moments, such as Shemp making a word play on ‘bebop’, and the close-up view of “a hideous, monsterous face!” of a bat—with Shemp’s face!  A cute short film, but nothing exceptional.

Shemp Cocktail - A Toast to the Original Stooge

For a long time, I’ve been a fan of Shemp Howard, the under-appreciated ‘third stooge’ of the Three Stooges.  Most people don’t realize that Shemp was the ‘third stooge’ for many years as the stooges appeared on stage, before their movie career—and he was also the only one of the Stooges to have a successful career away from the Stooges.  He appeared with W. C. Fields in The Bank Dick, with Abbott and Costello in several of their movies (Buck Privates, In the Navy, Africa Screams), in musicals (Private Buckaroos with the Andrews Sisters) and in over a hundred other films.  One thing that I’ve always respected about Shemp is that, after rejoining the Three Stooges to replace his disabled brother Curly, Shemp didn’t attempt to be a poor imitation of Curly, but stuck with his original Stooge character.  He was not only secure in his own skin, but he was very funny as well.

Having said this, is this DVD collection worth buying?  The bad news is that the films aren’t restored, and many of them are commonly available in other places (Africa Screams, The Brideless Groom, Sing a Song of Six Pants, Malice in the Palace are all in the public domain).  The other ones, however, may not be in your collection, and are worth watching—Private Buckaroo is a good example of Shemp stealing every scene that he’s in; the Ed Wynn Show isn’t commonly available, and this episode with the Three Stooges is hilarious!  If you already have all of these, then don’t bother—if you don’t have more than half, then you probably want to take a look at this—it retails for under $20.00 USD at the time of this writing, and is available for less than that at Amazon.com.

America trusts in the abiding power of prayer and asks for the wisdom to discern God’s will in times of joy and of trial. As we observe this National Day of Prayer, we recognize our dependence on the Almighty, we thank Him for the many blessings He has bestowed upon us, and we put our country’s future in His hands.

From our Nation’s humble beginnings, prayer has guided our leaders and played a vital role in the life and history of the United States. Americans of many different faiths share the profound conviction that God listens to the voice of His children and pours His grace upon those who seek Him in prayer. By surrendering our lives to our loving Father, we learn to serve His eternal purposes, and we are strengthened, refreshed, and ready for all that may come.

On this National Day of Prayer, we ask God’s continued blessings on our country. This year’s theme, “Prayer! America’s Strength and Shield,” is taken from Psalm 28:7, “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped.” On this day, we pray for the safety of our brave men and women in uniform, for their families, and for the comfort and recovery of those who have been wounded.

The Congress, by Public Law 100-307, as amended, has called on our Nation to reaffirm the role of prayer in our society by recognizing each year a “National Day of Prayer.”

Isaiah Edwin Leopold, known around the world as Ed Wynn, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA on November 9, 1886.  As a teenager, he ran away from home and used his middle name, Edwin, as his stage name—Ed Wynn.  Although he eventually became a headliner in vaudeville, his early years were less successful.  At one point, he worked as an on-stage assistant to (then) comedy juggler W. C. Fields. The curmudgeonly Fields caught him “mugging” for the audience during Fields’ “Pool Room” routine and knocked him unconscious with his pool cue. Ed Wynn went on to become a headliner in vaudeville in the early-1910s, and was a star of the Ziegfeld Follies starting in 1914.  In the same year he married his first wife, Hilda Keenan.

Alongside his success in his work life came the birth of his first son, Keenan Wynn, who would grow up to be a successful actor in his own right.  In 1919, however, after participating in an actor’s strike, he was blacklisted by the Shuberts, a major force in vaudeville.  With vaudeville closed to him, he took his clown character, “the perfect fool” to Broadway, writing and producing own shows beginning with Broadway musical revue, “Ed Wynn’s Carnival”.  He continued expanding into other mediums as well, such as radio (Ed Wynn actually made the first broadcast of a full-length comedy show to a radio audience), silent movies (Rubber Heels) and finally talking pictures (Follow the Leader) as well.  Ed Wynn starred in his own radio series, The Fire Chief, from 1932 to 1935, but by the end of the 1930’s, several of his business ventures collapsed, including a radio chain, and he suffered a severe nervous breakdown.  Ed Wynn retired briefly, and had a highly publicized income tax settlement for $510,000 with government.

By 1940, Ed Wynn returned to Broadway in “Boys and Girls Together”, and the next year he became a grandfather.  He came to television in 1949 with The Ed Wynn Show, for which he won an Emmy and a Peacock in 1950—and the show ended.  The next year, he supplied the voice, and inspired the appearance, of The Mad Hatter in Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland.  Still “retired”, his now-adult son, Keenan Wynn, recommended him for a role in the Playhouse 90 production of Rod Serling’s Requiem for a Heavyweight—due to his nerves since he had never acted in a non-comedic role, he kept flubbing his lines, and Ed Wynn was almost removed from the production, since the production would be broadcast live.  However, Jack Palance threatened that he would leave the show if Ed Wynn wasn’t there, and to the surprise of most of the cast, Ed Wynn performed flawlessly.  Ed Wynn also performed with his son later on in The AbsentMinded Professor.

With his first success as an ‘actor’, Ed Wynn did many more serious roles over the years, including the dentist Dussell in The Diary of Anne Frank, a variety of TV appearances including One for the Angels on The Twilight Zone, but he’s best remembered for his work in the movies, including Cinderfella (1960) with Jerry Lewis, The AbsentMinded Professor (1961) with Fred MacMurray, recapping his Perfect Fool/Fire Chief character, Walt Disney’s Babes in Toyland (1961), and perhaps his most famous role as Uncle Albert in Mary Poppins (1964).

Ed Wynn continued working up to the time of his death on June 19, 1966 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA, of cancer.  Ed Wynn is interred along with his son, Keenan Wynn, at Forest Lawn, Glendale, CA., in the Great Mausoleum. The epitaph on his niche reads: “Dear God, Thank You.”

Abbott and Costello’s Ride ‘em Cowboy (1942) starring Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Dick Foran, Ella Fitzgerald

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello star as two peanut vendors at a rodeo show who get in trouble with their boss and hide out on a railroad train, which unexpectedly heads west with them still on it. Upon arriving, they get jobs on a dude ranch despite the fact that neither of them knows anything about cowboys, horses, or much else. The scene with Lou Costello attempting to milk a cow is a gem of comedy. Abbott and Costello follow the same formula here as in their previous films, with a romantic subplot and music, provided here by Ella Fitzgerald.

I rate it 4 clowns on a 5-clown scale.

Trivia about Abbott and Costello’s Ride ‘em Cowboy:

• The original production plans were delayed in favor of another of Abbott and Costello’s service comedies, Keep ‘Em Flying (1941), which were proving to be huge box office hits for Universal.
• This was the last Abbott and Costello film to be directed by Arthur Lubin. Like their previous collaborations, this became one of the biggest hits of the year.

Frankly, Country Club Dance is my favorite episode of season 6 of I Love Lucy, for several reasons.  It starts with the ‘boys’ (Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz), Fred Mertz (William Frawley) and their new neighbor, Ralph Ramsey (Frank Nelson)) are nagged by their wives into attending a country club dance where they meet a very young, and very attractive, Barbara Eden—22 years old at the time of this episode.  The men immediately fall over themselves vying for the dance time of the shapely blond, and ignore their wives for the rest of the evening.

The wives (Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball), Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance) and Betty Ramsey (Mary Jane Croft)) make no bones about their hurt feelings, and decide to fight fire with fire for the dance that they’ve already agreed to for the next night—Betty douses herself in perfume, Ethel tries a new hairdo, and Lucy wears a far-too-tight dress—and imitates Barbara Eden’s character’s voice as well.  Lucille Ball demonstrates her physical comedy skills here in the dress that’s so tight that she can’t sit down in it—and later in the evening when she forgets, and bends over to pick something up!  The men, in the meantime, feel bad about how they treated their wives, and determine to spend every dance that night with their wives.  But Lucy’s suspicious nature flares up, and she gets the other wives to march out in a huff with her.

In a very sweet ending to the episode, the wives come back hours later, and from a hiding spot see the husbands talking about their failed evening, and how they can’t win no matter what—and how they’re going to try to preserve their egos by presenting a brave face about their ‘wonderful’ evening ... and the wives decide to uphold their husbands egos by pretending that they haven’t heard, and dragging their ‘misbehaving’ husbands home.

Country Club Dance is available as part of the I Love Lucy season 6 DVD collection.

Editorial review of Barney Fife and other characters I have know by Don Knotts --courtesy of Amazon.com

Fish. Chicken. Deputy. Icon. TV’s beloved Don Knotts gives his millions of fans the book they’ve been waiting for.

Don Knotts recounts with warmth and humor the events that shaped his life and a career that spans half a century: his colorful childhood in his family’s West Virginia boarding house; his hectic stint as a comic on the road, and as a rising star in the burgeoning days of live TV; his big break on Broadway in No Time for Sergeants; his five-season, multi-award-winning portrayal of Mayberry’s bumbling and beloved Barney Fife. With candor he takes us behind the scenes on the set of Three’s Company, and behind the sets of his hugely successful film comedies. And he shares bittersweet memories of The Mayberry Reunion, and affectionate recollections of his professional and personal relationships with such legends as Andy Griffith, Jack Benny, Red Skelton, Orson Welles, Lou Costello, and Arthur Godfrey.

Here is the inside story of the comedic genius behind Mr. Limpit, Mr. Chicken, Barney Fife, and the other characters we’ve come to know. And love.
* With a foreword by Andy Griffith

It’s too late to buy Charlie a birthday present, of course, but thankfully it’s not too late to appreciate the gift of laughter that he shared with the world.  Happy birthday, Charlie!