Three Loan Wolves

That's Larry's version of "The Three Bears". The first two were heavyweight prizefighters and the third a famous sportswriter.

There are two fight sequences where Curly seems to be holding his own physically;other times when he just stands around and lets Larry take the brunt of the plot.

How do you stop a baby from crying? LARRY:"Lock the baby in the safe and you won't hear it!". Moe does not agree.

In addition to clumsily caring for an abandoned baby,the boys have to fend off protection racketeers on their pawnshop.

The head "tough guy" is knocked out with a bowling ball,placed ina baby carraige with a bottle in his mouth;and shoved out into traffic.

A good showcase for Larry,but 1942's SOCK A BYE BABY is much better.

"How did that baby get here?"

"Business as usual"

WHAT???

"I mean,the kid walks in and asks for a match and I say--"Nah,I don't smoke....."

This is a perfect example of what I consider to be exploiting someone. Here it is that Curly has already had several mild strokes and yet because of "contractural obligations" he is forced to work. The Stooges should have sought out a real sharpie lawyer on this one. For me this is a painful short to watch in that we're looking at someone who in all the other earlier shorts is so full of life and literally steals every scene and now appears to be just part of the staging and unable to do any of his old stuff. Harry Cohn of Columbia must have been a real "nice" guy to work for. A real sweatshop type of slave driver. The actress Jean Arthur summed it up pretty well when she remembered the day her contract at Columbia was through. She said, "Now I'm free!"

As most shorts with Curly when he was sick, this was pretty weak. The plot deals with the Stooges telling their adopted son a flashback story of who his real mother is, and how they found him. Not only was the plot weak (the "baby" theme was never one of the Stooges' stronger recurring themes). What's really strange about this is that Larry and Curly's roles appear to have been switched. Larry is the star of the short and gets most of the attention and lines, and Curly hardly has any lines and is pushed into the background. This was strange - it's usually the other way around. I'm guessing Larry and Curly's roles were switched because Curly wasn't up to following the original script. While Larry has some funny lines here, I don't think that he can really carry a short by himself. He's a lot funnier as the middleman, and he's had better shorts where he's shined (FUELIN' AROUND for example), and a lack of Curly in this short is too noticeable. Not a great short.

Larry, Curly, and Moe tell their son of how he came to have three fathers. The guys inherit a pawn shop from their uncle. Hoodlum Butch McGee comes in to collect money for the gashouse protection society. Curly accidentally knocks him out. Molly and Butch are hiding from the cops. She's holding her sister's baby to throw them off. The criminal duo decides to leave the baby in the pawn shop.

I'm not a fan of gunplay with the Stooges. This one goes the next step by giving it to a baby. Larry seems to have a bit more to do in this one. He gets a few scenes by himself. Curly is probably struggling to carry his weight at this point. He still has a few good wacks in him. Otherwise, this is a solid Stooges short.

"Here Today, Pawn Tomorrow" reasons the pawnshop sign where our three guys - Curly, Larry and Moe - have a shop. A little kid enters the store and wonders what's the story here as all three guys claim to be his father. They tell him the story, so we are flashed back into time, and the story begins with......

Moe beating on Larry for buying a fake bass fiddle. Then, the tough guy who sold him that cardboard "instrument" comes back looking for protection money. Curly tries to show him how tough he is, but he isn't. However, he accidentally knocks the guy out. Then he and Moe go out to lunch. Moe actually calls him Curly. I don't remember hearing that too often. It's usually an insult, never just "Curly." Maybe Moe felt sorry for him because, in real life, this was one of Curly's last shows as he had suffered several strokes. It wasn't long afterward that he was gone for good, sad to say. Anyway, Larry is left alone in the story and the next thing you know, there's a baby left in the place, courtesy of a "babe" who looked the class film noir brassy blonde.

How the guys handle trying the pacify the crying little baby is the bulk of the second half. Curly was in this episode, but at the same time, was about "absent," because you could tell his energy level wasn't the same. He gave it a good try, however.

Overall, it winds up just fair, to be honest. They could have done so much more if they involved the crooks more, and Beverly Warren but it's mainly just Moe hitting on the two other guys and Larry (called "Apple Head" a few times in here) getting the brunt of it. Because Curly wasn't physically up to par, we couldn't enjoy his normal great humor. Larry is okay, but he's no Curly.