Rl.
Jan. 1 / Prod. No. 533 / 151/2
m / p Del Lord and Hugh McCollum
/ d Del Lord /
st scr Elwood Ullman and Monty Collins /
ph George Meehan
/ e Paul Borofsky / a
Carl Anderson / C: Vernon Dent (Hans),
Dudley Dickerson (Wilbur the Cook) and Lloyd Bridges (Phone Caller)
SYN:
The Stooges are repairmen working
for Fix-All Fixers who happen to be fixing a broken
doorbell in a home where top Nazi and Japanese conspirators are planning
to conquer the world with their new high-powered submarine. They send
Curly up a telephone pole where he does more harm than good, and In
the process of literally destroying the home in an attempt to locate
the electrical wiring, the Stooges find more than they bargained for.
They locate proof of the conspirators plans to conquer the earth,
and overhear the spies' talks to operate the submarine via remote
control. Moe and Larry disguise themselves as Hitler and Tojo, in
a scheme to overtake the consipirators, man the controls, and blow
up the submarine.
Quick
Hits:
-
Did you know that They Stooge To Conga
is one of the most violent Three Stooges comedies ever made? It
features a spike gag that make even ardent fans cringe.
(Read
more in the Production Sidelights below)
PS:
Watch
for Lloyd Bridges (Sea Hunt, Hearts of the West) as an irate man on
the telephone.
More
on the Spike Gag: In
this short, Moe's eyes and ears are on the receiving end of a spike
from Curly's shoe while Curly is scaling a telephone pole. Just who
was responsible for the crudeness of its presentation - the writer,
the producer, or the director? Screenwriter Elwood Ullman is innocent.
In the script, Ullman calls for Curly's spike to dig into Moe's ear
once, never in the eyeball. In an interview session, writer-producer-director
Norman Maurer and Edward Bernds discussed the spike gag. As Maurer
said: "In the scene you're talking about, that is strictly cutting.
And there's only one who's going to cut that scene, and that's the
producer." Edward Bernds added: "You can't blame the producer
for a scene that the director directed, but you can blame him for
the way he cuts it." In the case of the scene in question, however,
it is believed that both the director and the producer were responsible:
the director for going farther with the gag than the script intended,
and the producer for not having the taste to cut it out.
