The Three Stooges “Hold That Lion”/Death of Shemp trilogy
February 16th, 2010 by Scott Marks
Volume seven of the luxuriant Three Stooges Collection became the most recent addition to my personal archive. The two DVD, 22 short set takes us through the declining years of the Shemp dynasty before reaching the nadir known as Besser.
With just shy of 30 shorts yet to be released, there is obviously enough left over for the concluding and defining box set. This would constitute the notorious final four Shemp’s, shot posthumously with the aid of stand-in Joe Palma as the seventh Stooge, and of course, the most reviled addition of the bunch: the 13 Bessers.
“Hold That Lion” is legendary among Stooge fans as the only time both Shemp and Curly appear on screen together. It is also Curly’s swan song. Tough times and television forced the Columbia shorts unit to cut corners. Originality was supplanted by the cost cutting need to regurgitate previous hits.
While studying each short in chronological order a certain air of familiarity began to color the proceedings. The studio could not let go of “Hold That Lion.” Long before America went green, filmmaker Jules White was one of the earliest practitioners of recycling. Between March and May of 1953, 8 years before Ingmar Bergman directed “Through a Glass Darkly,” Columbia Pictures released three “new” Stooge shorts to first run theatres that would collectively come to be known as the “‘Hold That Lion’” or “Death of Shemp” trilogy. These three shorts combined contain the entire 1947 two-reeler “Hold That Lion,” also directed by Mr. White.
“Hold That Lion” features bit player Kenneth MacDonald in his career defining role as Ichabod Slipp, a character he would revive two years later for another pair of shorts. Slipp swindles the boys and they hop a train in order to hunt him down. On board an escaped lion wreaks havoc among the passengers. The spruced up video restoration is so sparkling it reveals a new-found flaw not inherent in softer 16mm prints. Look carefully when the boys are trapped in the cage with Leo. One can now spot the camera reflection in the pane of glass that separates the boys from their maned menace. Also take not of the FAO Schwartz stuffed lion that menaces the boys at the foot of their bunk.
Doubles, dubs and Dudley round out the festivities. Study the mangy-haired Larry stunt double that flees the cage. Listen to the passengers docile, dubbed in moans of “Oh, a lion.” “Look, a lion.” And what can be said of Dudley Dickerson? Studio head Harry Cohn vowed that the only time you’d see a person of color in one of his films is if they were cast in subservient roles. As the hapless train porter, Dudley is Cohn’s theory put to the test.
So here in essence are four films for the price of three. If you watch “Loose Loot” before “Booty and the Beast” you’ll get a stronger grasp on “Hold That Lion’s” proper chronology. While “Tricky Dicks” only contains one brief reused sequence, I’m sure you will all agree that my reasons for including it solely on the basis of Murray Alper’s performance are justified.
Booty and the Beast (1953)
Directed by Jules White
Written by Felix Adler and Jack White
Starring: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Shemp Howard, Kenneth MacDonald, Vernon Dent, Dudley Dickerson, Blackie Whiteford, Heinie Conklin and Curly Howard
Photographed by Fayte Browne
Edited by Edwin Bryant
Running Time: 16 min.
The short opens on new footage of old Kenneth MacDonald playing a burglar breaking and entering into a cheap soundstage flat. Bamboozling the boys into believing he’s the owner of the house, they willingly aid and abet the desperate intruder’s attempt to gain entry and the expected safe cracking that ensues.
The mighty Stooges pull up in front of a rolled painted backdrop of a poverty row Twelve Oaks. The reason it looks so unconvincing is because it’s a flat backdrop, not a trans-screen, a translucent picture lit from behind.
Moe was at his most abusive while under Jules White’s watch. In one of the team’s most brutal exercises, Moe chokes, groin stomps, kicks, hammers, knocks out teeth and spits in Shemp’s eye before threatening to push it through the other side of its socket with a stick of TNT. Commanding Larry to bend over, Moe sets the willing Stooge in motion for a mud facial pay off. A power drill burrows Shemp a new a’hole before acting as a joy buzzer for Moe to shake hands with. As Moe, the pissed off Uber Stooge aims the power tool at Larry’s head he gleefully snarls, “I’ll jam it in your face.”
Disciples, Larry enthusiasts in particular, will delight in the venerated middle Stooge’s trademark cry of “Hey, leave him alone.”
Aside from our trio of halfwits, Ken MacDonald’s revival of the role, in one form or another, of the infamous Ichabod Slip is the film’s unifying link. The Nixonian MacDonald plays a man with no name to enable Columbia’s crack post sound team to seamlessly (and seemingly) transform I. Slipp into a new and fascinating screen presence. MacDonald looks like a deer caught in the grip truck’s headlights as he fumbles with a crowbar to jimmy his way through the balsa wood plantation.
The Slipp cover absconds with the loot leaving running time for a sagging Vernon Dent to show up for SAG scale. Dressed in a costume more befitting a filling station attendant than a security guard the white-haired, belt busting bit player looks ever day of his 58-years plus 30. Kudos to the corpulent comic trooper for performing his own stunt. The production probably couldn’t afford to pop for a dummy that big.
At precisely 7:38 an optical wipes us six years into the past when such luxuries as extras, props and set “dressing” were built into the budget. What makes this reimagining unique can be found in the extensive effort in keeping continuity by redubbing every utterance of Slipp’s name. Whole sentences are replaced, but it’s a quick one word substitution that functions as the short’s raison d’être. A dazed Moe looks up, sees the stock footage Slipp and cries, “Hey, its’ him.”
A concluding five seconds of original footage is all that’s needed to tie up the new plot line.
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Tags: booty and the beast, curly howard, DVD Review, hold that lion, Jerome Curly Howard, kenneth macdonald, Larry Fine, loose loot, Moe Howard, moe larry curly, shemp howard, The 3 Stooges, The Three Stooges, three stooges vol. 7, tricky dicksYouTube ‘Hitler Reacts’ videos are EC’s downfall
January 31st, 2010 by Scott Marks
YouTube Hitler parody videos are my downfall.
These frequently hilarious swatches that the Fuehrer would definitely have classified as degenerate art have been gathering views in record numbers for going on two years. They even managed to grab the attention of the generally high-minded New York Times.
It’s a viral video phenomenon that’s snowballed into what amounts to the world’s largest Film School 101 exercise. Each student is assigned the same scene, in this case a particularly combustible nugget from the German language film “Downfall” (2004), a biographical account of Adolf Hitler’s last ten days. The YouTube auteurs’ mission is to give new voice to Hitler by replacing the original English subtitles with satiric variations of their own.
The snippet in question shows Der Fuehrer (played by distinguished German actor Bruno Ganz) seated at his desk in the bunker while his minions nervously mill about waiting to deliver news that the war is over and Hitler’s side lost. All but three are asked to leave the room after which Hitler’s quivering hand slowly and silently removes his eyeglasses. It’s the calm before the sturm und drang as we await the reenactment of a full mental blitzkrieg on the Poland of Hitler’s cerebellum complemented by sarcastic subtitles.
Screenwriter Keith Ross Leckie (“Everest,” “Shattered City”) told The Globe and Mail, “Hitler is the extreme villain of course, and we’re all fascinated with him. The scene is set for you at the first glimpse. All his generals are standing around looking tense. You know something is up. The very intensity of it is what makes it so funny.”
Several months ago a former student introduced me to my first Hitler parody video. “Hitler learns that the ‘Avatar’ trailer sucks” cast Schicklgruber in the role of a nervous fanboy fearing that that the finished product could not possibly live up to advance hype. It’s a masterful pile of in-jokes that harpoon James Cameron’s most arcane flops and draw unflattering comparisons to “Land Before Time 3” and “FernGully: The Last Rainforest.” There’s even a knowing aside concerning “the Hollywood opiate of putting technology before the story.”
Be aware that every variation contains R rated language. Some of the salty on-screen translations get bluer than a brace of Na’vi.
Sharper entries include “Hitler reacts to McCain’s V.P. pick” (“Her daughter gets passed around like a joint at a Ben Harper concert.”), Hitler confronting his own sexuality after learning that gays are getting married and his wrath and indignation upon discovering that Dallas didn’t make it to Super Bowl 42.
The most obtuse variant I unearthed was “Hitler Responds to Sam’s Birthday,” an exclusive invitation to a London birthday bash.
I just finished “researching” thirty or so of the wildly popular Hitler parodies and my guess is there’s at least ten times that amount on YouTube. No two parodies bear the same title, so it’s impossible to calculate just how many variations there are. Some begin with “Hitler finds out about…” or “Hitler rants about…” or “Hitler is informed about…,” buy they all share the same fundamental concept.
Hitler is brought news that displeases him. It could be that his mother is coming to visit (not surprisingly she drives a Volkswagen) or that he’s been banned from Xbox Live. And I pity the poor SS Officer assigned the task of telling Hitler that there is no Santa Claus. Hitler asks, “If he doesn’t exist why, would they write songs about him?” and demands an explanation for “the consumed milk and cookies.”
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Tags: Adolf Hitler, bruno ganz, Charlie Chaplin, Downfall, Ernst Lubitsch, Hillary Clinton, Hitler parodies, Hitler parody, Hitler Reacts, Hitler Reacts videos, Hitler Responds to Sams Birthday, Hitler YouTube, HOGANS HEROES, I'll Never Heil Again, Jack Benny, Mel Brooks, Moe Howard, Scott Marks, SDNN, The 3 Stooges, The Great Dictator, THE PRODUCERS, The Three Stooges, To Be or Not to Be, YouTubeFiled Under Rants
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