Spook Louder

"Professor I can't stand it any longer! Who threw that pie?!" You'll be asking yourself this same question while watching this great slice of comic mayhem. The Stooges are key figures in the breaking up of the Great Spy Ring in this short. But they are not spies. They are just simple salesmen who wander into horror, hell, and very funny situations. After assigned as bodyguards to a professor's house the boys meet up with skeletons, mummies, strange sounds, U.F.P's (unidentified flying pies) and the Devil?! Great piece of mystery/silliness that has it all. Look closely for Charles Middleton (Emperor Ming of the 1930's Flash Gordon serials.

Spook Louder (1943)

*** (out of 4)

A reporter goes to interview Professor Dunkfeather (Lew Kelly) who tells him about two separate cases, all involving the Stooges. One involves the boys going around trying to sell weight reducing machines. The next has the boys inside a spooky house where a skeleton, a devil and another man tries to scare them.

SPOOK LOUDER isn't the greatest short in the world but there's no doubt that fans of the Stooges should enjoy what humor there is. I'd say the weakest stuff deals with the Dunkfeather character as there's really no humor to be found here. The first story contains a couple decent laughs but the highlight is certainly when the three manage to finally get a buyer only to have Curly mess it up. The majority of the laughs come from the second portion of the film as the boys are running around scared of just about everything that jumps out at them. There are some really funny moments to be found here including one where Curly keeps getting punch by someone behind a book shelf.

Scriptwriters for the Three Stooges dug deep in their memory holes to dig up comedy skits of the past to give the comedy team material to work with. Early film historians can trace some of the Stooges' brilliant routines from past movies. A prime example is April 1943's "Spook Louder," set in an old dark house where the boys are scared every second by disguised enemy spies dressed in Halloween costumes intent on capturing a top scientist's 'Death Ray.' Film reviewer Dave Sindelar notes, "The Stooges had a way of packing a whole movie's worth of gags into a seventeen minute short, and this one is great fun." One of the key mysteries in "Spook Louder" is why and who is throwing pies at the Stooges and the professor who relates the tale to a reporter of the trio's adventures. Diligent research reveals the answer to the mysterious pie throwing can be traced to the 1931 Mack Sennett comedy, 'The Great Pie Mystery,' with Harry Gribbon and May Boley. Writer Clyde Bruckman, who had a habit of modifying older movie gags for the Stooges, was credited for adopting the pie-in-the-face gag into the story of their night in the inventor's house. Coincidentally, Del Lord directed both the Sennett film and "Spook Louder." The Stooges open "Spook Louder" as weight reduction machine salesmen who knock on the door on the house of an inventor who's planning to drum up interest of his a 'death-ray' machine to government officials in Washington, D. C. His butler answering the door is played by actor Charles Middleton in his only Stooges' film. Fans of the "Flash Gordon" serials will recognize him as Ming the Merciless. Meanwhile the inventor is acted by Ted Torch, who played the High Priest in the same Flash Gordon serial. The inventor asks the three to housesit for the weekend while he's away in D. C. That evening, three spies, intent on stealing the machine, go about scaring the Stooges. Writer Bruckman sketched the gag showing Curly unknowingly tethered to a balloon with a face drawn on it. The balloon, hooked onto the back of his sweater, frightens everyone he meets, a skit taken from Harry Langdon's 1929 comedy film "The Big Kick." The movie is also the first to show Moe's hair rising when scared.

Spook Louder!Its a great one to watch around Halloween time.I love what happens in the house.The clocks and noises in the house are very funny.I think this is a great one and its so good to watch over and over and over again!

This Three Stooges "movie" is broken into three segments: 1 - a newspaper man goes to interview a "Professor Denkfeather," who is a "special investigator. He tells the story of the three "heroes;" 2 - The boys are seen as door-to-door salesmen, selling "reducing machines" to housewives; and 3 - the wind up at a deserted house miles away but three spies, dressed in costumes, try to scare them off.

Everyone is very odd in this film. The investigator is very weird and is the man behind the big question of "Who threw those pies?" The women that the Stooges encounter while trying to see their wares. Finally, the owner of the house where the spies are hiding outside, dressed as a skeleton, the Devil, and just some dark-clothed-hairy monster.

This is one of those episodes - as are a few others in this DVD of the same title ("Spook Louder" - in which only the last 4-6 involve what the title implies. The best comedy bit was with Curly and the balloon inadvertently attached to the back of his sport coat. The reactions on Curly's face are what help make him a comic genius.

Overall, a decent Stooges effort but not as good as advertised.