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anderman70
Reviews
Man or Mouse (1948)
A great Noel Neill treasure
Those who only know Noel Neill from her Lois Lane role, will be surprised by this short. She is much younger, and plays the comedy really well. She also looks great in shorts and long hair. The scenes where she attempts to build Sterling up are great. To get him downstairs to the gym, she picks him up and throws him over her shoulder and carries him downstairs. Unfortunately, a really bad stunt double was used for Noel-a big burly guy in a dress.
Noel tosses the medicine ball like it weighs nothing, while Sterling can hardly lift it. The best is an extended boxing sequence where Noel and Sterling spar. It is surprisingly realistic, and Noel looks like she knows what she's doing as she beats the daylights out of Sterling.. It's all done for laughs tho, and is as harmless as 'Stooge violence' This is a short I remembered seeing long ago, and only stumbled on recently. if you find a way to get it, you'll be glad you did.
Punchy Cowpunchers (1950)
the best Stooge western
This is one of the funniest Stooge westerns ever. It is tightly paced, well directed, and features great characters. I'd almost say the Stooges were out staged by the fumbling Jock Mahoney and the great Christine McIntyre.
Christine outdoes her punching Shemp out scene from 'Brideless Groom', by beating up the entire gang one by one. As she claims to be a 'weak defenseless woman', she decks them with one punch, then ladylike she faints on her bed. This was also one of the few Stooge shorts that featured a music soundtrack. I always thought the Stooge shorts would benefit greatly with a music score. Maybe Columbia was just to cheap, as I've seen other comedy shorts from the studio, and they were also wanting for music.
Rumpus in the Harem (1956)
This is a commentary on the Stooges short,'Rumpus in the Harem"
This was one of the unfortunate 'dead Shemp' shorts, but is one I've been forgiving of, since I 've always liked the scene in the harem where Moe and Larry are beaten up by the harem girls. Suzanne Ridgeway was a cute actress who appeared in minor roles in many Columbia pictures. She fascinated me as a kid, and it's a treat to see her pop up in other shorts. The original short ,"Malice in the Palace" was superior overall, but I have to admit to a morbid habit of studying the Joe Palma standing as as Shemp scenes. They found more ways to film the back of his head, and to cut in Shemp's 'meep meep'. It's interesting that the next 'dead Shemp' short, also had Moe and larry being beat up by two military women. Maybe it was an easy answer as to how to squeeze a couple of new scenes on an old short, but it was entertaining to me.