In the Sweet Pie and Pie

Who had better pie fights than the Three Stooges? If you want to see one of their best, this is the film to see as the last three minutes are nothing but people throwing and mashing pies into each other's faces. No matter how many times I see Animal House-scenes like this over many years - and I've seen this more times and for more years than I want to admit - I still laugh.

It all began when Tiska, Taska and Baska Jones - three scheming sisters - are bummed out because they might have just lost out on their $10 million inheritance clause which insists they be married by tomorrow to collect. (This theme was used in several Three Stooges films and the greedy people always got what was coming to them!) Anyway, when the guys the women lined up for matrimony - Tom, Dick and Harry - are shipped out to Honolulu, the women are in desperate straits.

Their lawyer, however, has an idea: marry these three convicts (Curly, Larry and Moe, shown on the front page of the day's newspaper) today before they are going to be hanged tomorrow and then collect and be rid of them when they die!

So, the girls head out to the jail where the boys, of course, marry them instantly. (If all of the above sounds like a corny and weird, well, that's our beloved Three Stooges, many times corny and stupid but almost always funny and entertaining.)

The humor was mostly slapstick with poor Curly and Larry gets hammered by merciless Moe. You also get a lot of puns and outrageous things like a saw losing all its teeth after meeting up with Curly's noggin. Curly can be honest, though. "I'm too young and too handsome to die," he wails. Then he looks in a mirror, says "Yuck!!!" and says, "Well, I'm too young, anyway."

Another outrageous scene, in addition to the pie fight at the end, is the hanging scene inside the jail. It is incredible dark humor, even for the Stooges. There is an announcer gleefully giving us the details, a necktie company sponsoring the radio broadcast, guys selling programs, peanuts and popcorn to the rest of the inmates, etc., etc.

All of this leads to the Stooges getting back with those woman and the girls deciding that to get a good reason for a divorce, they'd throw a high-society party and let their husbands make fools of themselves. Apparently, that would be grounds for divorce!

This is a true classic Three Stooges film, complete with all the sight gags, slapstick and corny lines you'd ever want to hear.