Vagabond Loafers

The Three Stooges revisited one of their all-time classics with Curly, this with Shemp taking the retired Stooge place in October 1949's "Vagabond Loafers," a title totally non-descriptive of the hard-working plumbers. The Three inexperienced plumbers answer an emergency call needing to patch a basement leak while a posh party celebrating the unveiling of an expensive painting takes place upstairs. Just as Curly did in 1940s "A Plumbing We Will Go," Shemp reroutes the bathroom's pipes into the electric wiring ducts. In fact, some of the footage in the earlier short film is sliced into the update, including regular Dudley Dickerson as the wide-eyed cook. But Dickerson's new scene is memorable after he battles with several water leaks throughout his kitchen. Wearing a raincoat, he announces to the hungry guests, "dinner's postponed on account of rain." The film, Dickerson's seventh Stooges' appearance, was his last, although the studio used a few of his previous scenes for remakes. Another regular's last credited appearance with The Three Stooges was Symona Boniface, whose films with the three comics dates back to 1935's "Pardon My Scotch." In "Vagabond Loafers" Boniface plays Mrs. Norfleet, typical of her characters with the Stooges as a snobbish, upper crust wife. Here she just purchased a 'Van Brocklin' painting for $50,000. The painting's name is a joke on the Los Angeles Rams' 1949 rookie quarterback, Norm Van Brocklin. When the Stooges as plumbers enter through the front door to fix the leak, she bellows, "How dare you come in here and mingle with my guests! Such impertinence!" She turns to her butler and commands, "Wilks, get them out of here and put them to work!" The Stooges have the last laugh when its discovered the 'Van Brocklin' painting has been stolen-by invited guest Mr. (Kenneth MacDonald) and Mrs. Allen (Christine McIntyre). Boniface was in a handful of uncredited roles and played in a Buster Crabbe 1950 serial episode before succumbing to pancreatic cancer in September 1950 at age 50.

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!

Vagabond Loafers is a funny Three Stooges short with Shemp! There is another short with alternate scenes called Scheming Schemers. Christine McIntyre and Kenneth MacDonald are really neat a couple. They were also a couple in the two shorts with alternates scenes called Crime on Their Hands and Hot Ice! Symona Boniface, Emil Sitka, Dudley Dickerson, and Herbert Evans also appear in this short! This is great short with Shemp!

When I was watching this short one afternoon I thought that it was a very good short but it falls a bit short of being a classic cause I noticed that Larry takes more of Moe's wrath than Shemp, although I've only seen the edited version on the Family Channel, it is my understanding that Shemp does get hit but only once, and there is one scene when Shemp destroys the pipes and Moe doesn't even hit him, I found that surprising and the subplot of Kenneth MacDonald and Christine McIntyre wanting to steal an expensive painting keeps the short more exciting.

Although there aren't alot of classic moments in this short but this short overall is well done and fast paced and who cares that it's a remake of the classic Curly short A Plumbing We Will Go, this is a good Shemp short although I prefer Scheming Schemers (remake) more than this short.

8/10

As others have mentioned, this was a reworking of sorts from the 1940 Stooges film, "A Plumbing We Will Go," which featured Curly instead of Shemp and the boys.

I'm not going to go into too much of the story because they used some stock footage in here or they just did the same gags they had done earlier in the '40 film, which I hate to see as I've probably seen all these shorts many times over. Still, I never cease to laugh at some things, such as Dudley Dickenson's act as the cook doing double-takes and slipping and sliding all over the floor as the kitchen gets flooded, or Larry's head popping out of the ground.

When you see Kenneth MacDonald in a Three Stooges film you know you've just seen the villain. MacDonald who had a tough, film-noir voice and face. They were always good in those roles, as was Christine McIntyre, another regular in these shorts, and Emil Sitka, who usually was innocent victim of something the Stooges did. Another regular, Symona Bonfice, always plays a stuffy socialite who winds up getting ruined by the inept Stooges. As you can see, there are many familiar "Three Stooges" faces in this humorous remake.

Despite the familiarity of this story, it was still a lot of fun to watch.

Formulaic remake omits the intro trial scene and police chase subplot, and drops the trio into a mansion with a leak during a ritzy dinner party. Here, the three really are plumbers by trade, sort of (Moe is even reading How To Be A Plumber!) Shemp traps himself in a cage built from the water pipes, exactly like Curly did in the original. Never would have expected that. Nor would I have expected to see the footage of the cook from the original, and Larry digging in the yard, lifted whole from the earlier short film.

Everything moves along too quickly here, everything seems rushed to its predictable conclusion. The theft of a valuable painting has been added as a subplot to pad out the run time. Mistaken identities ensue, but it all just ends up distracting and over-complicating what was originally a quite funny, simple story. Emil Sitka has the funniest line, "Short circuit, no doubt!"

Moe, to Larry: "What do you charge to haunt a house?" Larry: "How many rooms?"