Idle Roomers

The Three Stooges, in July 1944 "Idle Roomers," finds the trio as hotel bellhops. The episode is famous for introducing actress Christine McIntyre to the Stooges' acting troupe. This was the blonde Nogales, Arizona native's first of nearly two dozen Stooges' movie appearances through the mid-1950s. McIntyre graduated from the Chicago Musical College, excelling in vocal studies, which opened the doors to her movie career in 1937. She sang in several movies before moving on to low-budget Westerns. Signing a ten-year contract with Columbia Pictures, McIntyre dove completely into the Stooges world (she did briefly appear as an extra in the Stooges' 1943 "They Stooge to Conga.") In her first big role for the Stooges, McIntyre plays a hotel guest whom the three bellhops battle over to give her the best service possible. Her husband (Vernon Dent) secretly has delivered to the hotel Lupe the Wolf Man (Duke York), who escapes from his hidden cage while the Stooges are cleaning the room. Mayhem ensues, including a hilarious sequence first introduced in the Marx Brothers' 1930 "Duck Soup." Curly thinks he's looking at himself in the mirror, when it's actually Lupe mimicking his every move on the other side of the broken mirror. The three eventually find themselves in an elevator with Lupe, a sequence copied from Buster Keaton's 1921 'The Goat.'

Larry, Curly, and Moe are bumbling bellboys at the Hotel Snazzy-Plaza. A guest has brought Lupe - The Wolf Man which goes crazy when it hears music. It's solid random Stooges fun early on and then they add in a wolf man. "Did you lock the door?" is my favorite low key joke. The elevator is actually pretty good and it allows the short end. This is solid all around.

This three stooges short I think is one of the best and funniest there is of the three stooges. the funniest parts in this episode is when Curly is taking that big box that has the wolfman in it up to the owners room and when he gets to the floor that he is suppose to go to Larry is behind a door pulling in the rug Curly is walking on and Curly says "Whoa its a long way to that door" then it goes to Larry who is still pulling the rug in and does not know Curly is walking on it and says "This thing must be glued down" I think that is one of the funniest scenes in this short and another part where Curly looks in a broken mirror that the wolfman is standing behind and Curly thinks that wolfman is him. This short is real funny. If your a big fan of the three stooges and haven't seen this one but heard of it I strongly suggest you watch it if it ever comes on AMC.

The Three Stooges by themselves are already a handful trouble waiting to explode but add them to a hotel full of guests and then a wolf man on top of that? Whew. Funny on all points this one is. Curly sweeping the floor and knocking on the trunk containing the wolf man, unknown to Curly, and the wolf man inside echoing his knocks. Moe comes up from behind and says to Curly "Hey" and Curly thinking it's the trunk says "Shad Up" Then he tells Moe, "It was knocking at me" to which Moe naturally replies "I'll knock at you" Funny stuff all the way through and fast paced without any slow or "dead" spots at all. If you've reached a certain age and still haven't seen this one, be sure to rent it or buy it and watch and laugh as hard as you've never laughed before.

Idle Roomers (1944)

*** (out of 4)

The Three Stooges are working as bellboys and of course they can't do anything right. After mixing it up with a woman's husband they find even worse news when they stumble across a wolf man while trying to clean their room.

The IMDb lists the working title of this as THE THREE STOOGES MEET THE WOLF MAN and if that's correct then it's really too bad Columbia didn't use it, although I'm going to guess that there might have been an issue with Universal who had just done FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN. With that said, I must admit that I really thought this short started off somewhat slow but things certainly picked up one the hairy one showed up. There were some terrific gags here between the Stooges and the wolf man including some very big moments that you could rank as some of the boys' best. Fans of the Universal movies and the Stooges will certainly be entertained with this one.