Rumpus in the Harem

The Three Stooges has always been some of the many actors that I have loved. I love just about every one of the shorts that they have made. I love all six of the Stooges (Curly, Shemp, Moe, Larry, Joe, and Curly Joe)! All of the shorts are hilarious and also star many other great actors and actresses which a lot of them was in many of the shorts! In My opinion The Three Stooges is some of the greatest actors ever and is the all time funniest comedy team!

This is a good three Stooges short. George J. Lewis, Frank Lackteen, Vernon Dent, Helen Jay, Harriette Tarler, Diana Darrin, Suzanne Ridgeway, and Ruth White all performed well. There and many funny scenes here and The Three Stooges are hilarious! There is another short very similar like this one called Malice in the Palace. I recommend to see both of these Three Stooges shorts!

RUMPUS IN THE HAREM (1956) is an okay remake of MALICE IN THE PALACE (1949)but it still could've been better. Columbia didn't choose the best possible double for Shemp. The new footage at the beginning is okay, but it's hard to hear what their girlfriends are saying because of their weeping. And I didn't like the scene where the harem girls are beating up Moe and Larry. The only new scene I really liked was when the guard is chasing Shemp's double. They even dubbed in some scenes where Shemp is screaming. But it's obviously a double when Shemp is jumping out the window because they got lazy and didn't dub in Shemp screaming. The double screamed instead. But there's enough of the old footage to have a good laugh!

Grade: B-

The first Three Stooges short after Shemp's death, and this is a remake of MALICE IN THE PALACE (1949) with Joe Palma doubling for Shemp (with his back faced toward the camera to hide his face) in the new footage. This remake was terrible. The new footage was weak and poorly written and acted. And Joe Palma doubling for Shemp was pathetic. It was so obvious that wasn't Shemp from the first moment the back of the double's head appeared on screen. Who's idea was this? I feel the Stooges should've just called it quits after Shemp died. The Palma/Shemp's are embarrasing, and the later shorts with Joe Besser are terrible. Plus, it wasn't worth it for Moe to go on with the pain after losing TWO of his brothers in just 3 years. That must've been sad.

The fact that Columbia Pictures and the bossman at the time, Harry Cohn, actually put Moe Howard and Larry Fine into a position where they had to make a film with Shemp's name and face in the opening credits, even though Shemp had passed on is incredible--and not in a good way.

I get that Moe & Larry were under contract & Cohn wanted to keep cranking out stooge shorts, no matter what--but could the guys get some damn time off to grieve. Apparently not.

And then there's Joe Palma as the immortal "Fake Shemp." An idea that was doomed from the very start, but somehow they still made this short and then made 3 more after this with the "Bogus Shemp." What's wrong with this film--just about everything to be honest. The original "Malice in the Palace" was great, but I find it hard to enjoy the reused footage from that short here in "Rumpus" given the circumstances.

Moe and Larry certainly deserved better.

This was terribly pathetic! The new footage in the beginning sucks because it is just Moe and Larry waking up and reassuring their girlfriends that they will not be sold into slavery, and their girlfriends' weeping is so annoying. Plus, there is a stupid excuse why Shemp is not in that scene! The only part that is merely okay is the scene in which the guard is chasing the Shemp double in circles.

Grade: D-