Loose Loot

When you get a law firm like that on your case, the Three Stooges have nothing to worry about in collecting their inheritance. But there's a scheme afoot to deprive them of an inheritance.

Their uncle has left them a tidy sum of money, but will executor, one Ichabod Slipp has flown the coop with their inheritance. But with Moe, Larry and Shemp on the case right will prevail, after a fashion. The culprit is played by character actor Kenneth MacDonald.

It's a chase on a train to get MacDonald and the boys get themselves tangled up with a zoo lion being shipped God knows where. And their final showdown with MacDonald is classic, all three of them eventually bring him down.

Love the Stooges, but I certainly do love the Dickensian names they give some the supporting characters in their shorts. Ichabad Slipp, indeed.

Columbia was determined to get as much milk out of HOLD THAT LION! As they possibly could,adding new footage to BOTH halves of the film to make new shorts. LOOSE LOOT is by far superior to BOOTY AND THE BEAST.

Helped by hulking Tom Kennedy as a new footage bad guy---a Walter Long-type.he also appeared in SPOOKS! That same year.

Knock the apple off the gentleman's head and win a free ride on the Merry Go Round.

The head trapped in the door bit is a Felix Adler specialty--check out Abbott&Costello's THE NAUGHTY NINETIES.

LOOSE LOOT (1953) is not the best remake The Three Stooges have ever made. You can hardly even call this a remake. There's just reused footage from HOLD THAT LION! (1947) in the first five minutes. And the new footage is unusual, because most of it takes place in one room at the theatre. For some odd reason, Shemp isn't his usual funny self in the new footage, he, acts meaner that usual. "That guy must have iron in his bod," Shemp says after he sticks a sword in Slipp's (Kenneth MacDonald) rear end. Overall, an olay remake, but nothing special.

Grade: C

Footage from HOLD THAT LION! was also used in BOOTY AND THE BEAST (1953), the previous short.

LOOSE LOOT is a latter day Three Stooges short, and it's recommended as a satisfying never-ending assault of physical slapstick and insanity for all fans of the comedy trio! The first half begins with Moe, Larry and Shemp (in re-used older footage from 1947's HOLD THAT LION!) being conned out of their inheritance money by the shifty Ichabod Slip (Kenneth MacDonald), so the Stooges plot to confront the crook at a dance theater to get back their cash in the second half (which is all new 1950's footage matched to flow with the old). This is just nonstop and cartoonish madness from start to finish, as the Stooges mercilessly beat the tar out of MacDonald, who must have been paid well enough to endure such rough but comical abuse! I have always been impressed at the way Columbia managed to synchronize older and newer footage together, and in this case you could never tell unless you had already seen HOLD THAT LION!. *** out of ****

Ah yes, the old "Stooge Decline," where the new fangled television sets are killing off the 2-reeler business (if it wasn't dead already) and Jules White has to go "stock footage" crazy.

All that being said, there are a few of these recycled dogs that are average or above that; hell a few might improve on the original. "Loose Loot" comes close to being as classic as "Hold that Lion." It certainly is the best one coming from these waning years of the Shemp trio...