This is not the best sound comic short ever made (I would give that to either Laurel & Hardy or WC Fields), but it is a very good one, and perhaps the best illustration that much of the best of the Three Stooges really was handed down from Keystone, as the first two thirds of this really do resemble a particularly good Del Lord Stooges short. The gags surrounding cross-eyed Ben Turpin, in particular, are superb, as are the gags around a shaking reducing machine, and naughty old Keystone stalwarts gazing through keyholes.
The giant pie fight and Keystone Kops scene leave me a bit cold, though I suppose they were deemed essential in a short using old Keystone people. But, frankly, if you're the type to seek this kind of short out, you've seen all these gags before in better silent versions.
So -- definitely worth seeing, and its unfortunate (and a little odd) that Warners did not follow this one up with a series with this crew.
The giant pie fight and Keystone Kops scene leave me a bit cold, though I suppose they were deemed essential in a short using old Keystone people. But, frankly, if you're the type to seek this kind of short out, you've seen all these gags before in better silent versions.
So -- definitely worth seeing, and its unfortunate (and a little odd) that Warners did not follow this one up with a series with this crew.