Where the Pest Begins

The mind boggles at this particular short subject that stars Shemp Howard before he replaced brother Curly Howard as a Stooge. New neighbors have moved in to the house next door where Shemp and his wife Rebel Randall are living. When we meet Mr.&Mrs.Shemp he's having all kinds of trouble getting breakfast ready as the kitchen appliances just won't cooperate.

But that's nothing as we learn that Tom Kennedy the new neighbor is a defense contractor who likes to work from home. The only thing is that Kennedy's work involves explosives and I can see my civic association getting all in arms over that from a normal person. But Tom Kennedy made a career out of playing some of the stupidest people ever on the big screen, most noted for being Barton MacLane's dimwitted partner in the Torchy Blane series.

Because of that the gags more frightened than amused me in Where The Pest Begins. Still it does have its moments and clearly Shemp Howard was born to be a stooge.

Shemp Howard has new neighbors, and in true Shemp style of trying to be friendly, he makes a nuisance out of himself. To add to the comic possibilities, the neighbor, Tom Kennedy, experiments with explosives. The premise for the short comedy is fine, but it is marred by the direction of Harry Edwards, who is at the end of his career. Edwards was once a fine director of silent comedy, was instrumental in the career of Harry Langdon, but as the years progressed, his alcoholism worsened. By the time he made this short, comic timing and subtlety had been tossed out the window and the Jules White style of violent sight gags became the easy way out. But White kept his comedy moving, while Edwards would spend too much time on a gag situation. The performers, including the lovable Shemp, had all been turned into one dimensional human cartoons. These sight gags could have been performed by any group of comedians on the Columbia lot. Characterization was out the window and so was individual performing style. It is to the credit of Shemp Howard that he is able to maintain his basic comic persona in the midst of this mess.

I have to go against the grain--as far as the 2 reviews that have been submitted here. I thought this was a really cool Shemp Columbia solo--the second best after "Bride and Gloom" and "Mr. Noisy." Not only cool, but damn funny.

Shemp & Tom Kennedy make a great team and you get Shemp pairing alongside Christine McIntyre who appeared in a lot of the Shemp solos & we can see the great on screen chemistry of those two that was so invaluable in the later Three Stooges comedies. There's something to be said of the way that Shemp is almost ogling Christine throughout this film as if his on screen wife Rebel Randall wouldn't be enough woman for one man. Unfortunately, we don't get to see Rebel in a bathing suit like we did in Booby Dupes (a pity).

Have a jigger of Shemp's special and watch this one whenever you can get the chance.

9 stars

In the 1940s, before he rejoined the Three Stooges (he'd been the third stooge when they were on stage), Shemp Howard made several short films for Columbia. There are two main themes you see in these shorts--either Shemp is seen as a womanizer and his wife or neighbor is out to brain him OR Shemp is a completely annoying and pushy jerk. This is one of the latter films....where he is an insufferable fat-head who drives his poor neighbor (Tom Kennedy) out of his mind! Again and again, Shemp hurts the guy and then acts as if it's Kennedy's fault....not his.

It must have been fun to be Shemp in this one. Again and again, he spreads misery and is extremely pushy. Overall, an enjoyable and mindless short...better than the average Shemp solo film.