Flat Foot Stooges

FLAT FOOT STOOGES is a very weird plot. How did they come up with the idea of a duck laying an egg with gunpowder to start a fire. The stooges also play firemen in SOUP TO NUTS, FALSE ALARMS, & IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD. Watch one of those films instead.

** out of 4 stars.

Fire Chief Kelly is the old-fashioned type, preferring horse-drawn fire engines "because there is nothing more thrilling than seeing....blah, blah, blah." I guess looks are more important than putting out the fire, eh Chief?

Anyway, after arguing with a salesman trying to get the old guy to switch to modern machinery, his daughter comes in with a trophy that the boys - Curly, Larry & Moe - won for selling the most tickets to a picnic.

We then get our first glance at the Stooges as firemen. As you can guess, they aren't exactly proficient in their job. We get a corny skit of them trying to put on their duds and then trying to hitch up the horses to get to a fire....only to discover it's an alarm clock ringing, not the fire bell. It's pretty lame stuff, not the greatest of Stooges humor.

The Stooges are told there's a prize for the best-looking horses at the picnic, and since there is no fire, the boys decide to take two horses, Annie and Fannie, to the Turkish baths in town. (Don't ask.) Next, the boys give the horses a rubdown. The horses lie on a table!

All of this silliness is interrupted when, all of the sudden, the scene changes to some crook (that previously-mentioned salesman) holding a can of TNT and trying to get into a building. He's spilling it and a duck following is eating the stuff! Except for cartoons, where else can you see insane things like this?

From this point on - the second half of the story - it gets better, with genuinely funny sight gags, like the duck laying eggs that explode, or the safety net to save a guy jumping from the ledge. It even gets suspenseful with a raging fire - at the firehouse! Overall, however, it's slightly below-average material. It's a little too silly and definitely too loud.

In all honesty, this episode was another one of the Stooges's funniest installments. Based on some of the reviews I found on IMDb, it's also surprisingly underrated.

Charley Chase is definitely no Del Lord or Jules White. But, helming the chairs of writer and director for this short, he created perhaps one of the liveliest Three Stooges episodes ever made. Whoever said that this episode wasn't funny must have cotton for brains, because I found it to be hilarious. The comedy landed with amazing fluency and timing throughout the short, and the plot tied together nicely. While I do admit that there may have been a sense of disorganization in the short, Chase nevertheless made it all work and actually made something fun out of it all.

The performances of the cast were as entertaining and spritely as ever, if I may say. I mean, yes, the cast often spent a majority of the time interrupting or talking over each other, sometimes the Stooges even corrected themselves with what they're saying. In the long run, though, it made their performances funny, and it enhanced them with a human sense of accuracy. The Stooges themselves still had the best moments out of everyone, and it looked like they were having great time working on this short.

In the end, "Flat Foot Stooges" was another member of the Three Stooges filmography that provided a really great time.

Flat Foot Stooges (1938)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Decent short has the Three Stooges working at a fire company that still uses a horse and buggy to go to the fires. A salesman tries to make them come current but the owner refuses so the man accidentally starts a fire at the firehouse. It's hard to believe one could say that a Stooges short was just too silly for its own good but that's pretty much the case here. Have you ever seen a duck that eats some gun powder and then lays an egg that explodes? You'll get to see that here as well as another scene where bulldog fights a mouse only to get beat up. Those two items aren't really funny and that's pretty much the story from start to finish. We get a few nice gags but even the best ones will only put a smile on your face and none of them will have you laughing at out. The entire second half of the film deals with the firehouse being on fire but the Stooges manage not to realize even though they're downstairs from the blaze. This leads to a rather amusing scene where they must try to get the wagon around town without any horses.

The fire chief is unwilling to buy any modern equipment from salesman Mr. Reardon. Larry, Curly, and Moe are firemen at an old firehouse which still uses a horse-drawn fire engine. Reardon sabotages their fire engine and the chief's daughter Crickett catches him.

This is a fine Stooges short. It's fun for the most part. The Turkish bath would be funny except I think horses don't like lying on their sides which only happens when they're distressed like being pregnant. It doesn't make scene any funnier. As for the fire, the real danger also makes it less funny. All of it takes a bit of fun off the top.