Art Trouble

Harry Gribbon former Mack Sennett Keystone Cop and Shemp Howard sometime Stooge are a pair of house painters who get a once in a lifetime opportunity for an art scholarship. All they have to do is do it under the aliases provided by James Stewart and Don Tomkins who are being forced to go to Paris and study art by their rich mater and pater. If you can believe that, you'll believe anything.

Just as I never thought I would see a film where Shemp Howard was billed over Jimmy Stewart. Yet this Vitagraph short subject marked the film debut of a screen legend.

Gribbon and Shemp are living it up in Gay Paree with the money sent by the parents of the guys they're impersonating after each pre-written letter that they send. Still they manage to screw up the arrangement.

Highlight of the short subject for me is Shemp Howard attempting to do the apache dance and getting the roles reversed. Art Trouble is a mildly amusing short that would be totally forgotten today if a screen icon weren't in it.

All you need to know about this short is that Shemp Howard and Harry Gribbon are brothers who usually paint on boats but after a couple of rich siblings (one of whom is Jimmy Stewart in his film debut) offer them to take their place in a Paris artists gallery where they can paint nude women, they take it! (Stewart and his brother are more interested in trigonometry!) This was hilarious from beginning to end so on that note, I highly recommend Art Trouble.

Harry Gribbon and Shemp Howard star in this one as a couple of painters...and I am not talking about artists but guys who paint boats, buildings and the like. The film begins with the men using some WEIRD paint...that comes out in checkered patterns. The scene then cuts to some fancy society home. Two young men (one is Jimmy Stewart in his first film) are being told by their parents that the pair MUST got to Paris to live the bohemian life of painters and chase women. While you'd think they'd be thrilled with this, the brothers want to do post-graduate work in trigonometry! So, they pay the two painters (assuming they are the artistic variety) to take their place in Paris--living off the parents' money and carousing. The only caveat is that they are supposed to mail letters regularly to the parents telling them about their exploits in Paris...while pretending to be the brothers. Naturally the painters make a mess of everything...and it's best you just see it for yourself to see how.

This is not exactly a brilliant comedy but it has quite a few clever moments. And, for Stewart lovers, it certainly is worth seeing as well. Overall, enjoyable.

By the way, this short came out a month before the new, toughened Production Code was put into effect. As a result of this, some risqué Pre-Code humor can be found here which simply would have been edited out or softened had the film debuted just a bit later.

This is noted as the first filmed role for James Stewart, although he is not listed among the credits of this short film.

James Stewart plays one of two brothers who are ordered by their wealthy parents to go to Paris and become famous artists. They don't want to go to Paris with its atmosphere and beautiful girls and champagne. They prefer to stay in America and take a post-graduate course in trigonometry. So the brothers get a couple of painters - they paint ships not portraits - to go in their place and give them a series of letters to periodically mail back from France to their parents, so they'll think that they are there. But then the painters get tired of mailing these letters back individually and decide to mail them all at the same time, alerting the parents back home that something is up.

The two painters are played by Harry Gribbon and Shemp Howard, after he was ejected from The Three Stooges by Ted Healy. Stewart is only in a couple of scenes, and he was paid 50 dollars for his work. There is lots of filler in this short. There is a segment in the beginning about Gribbon and Howard being painters of the ships on "The Checkered Line" with them painting a ship with checkered paint. In France, there is a segment with a long scene concerning the Apache Dance, where the man throws the woman about during the dance. It goes on too long and is tedious in the end.

I'd recommend this mainly to see Stewart in his very first filmed role, but the rest of the short is pleasant enough. And if you ever wanted to see James Stewart roughed up by one of the Three Stooges, this is your opportunity.

Pretty impressive, for a short talkie! SO many huge names in here. Even jimmy stewart's first appearance. Shemp howard. Marjorie main and mary wickes, according to the imdb cast list. Main was probably best known for "the women" and ma kettle. And mary wickes was a fun supporting character in "man who came to dinner". Harry gribbon must have been someone, since he started in the early days of silents. The story itself is silly... who wouldn't take a free trip to paris, with the lodging paid?? It's mostly a bunch of vaudeville bits, stapled together for a twenty minute tale. And it's in surprisingly good condition. Some funny bits. Not every joke is a winner. Pause for laughter. Directed by ralph staub, who seems to have spent most of his thirty years making shorts.