Cash and Carry

"Cash and Carry" (1937) is the 24th Columbia short for the Three Stooges and has a most unusual (for them) beginning and end. Finding that a crippled orphan and his sister have taken over their shack at the city dump, the trio promises to raise the young people's cache of coins to the $500 needed for a leg operation. Of course, they run into swindlers, who sell them a treasure map to a house that just happens to be next to a Federal Treasury Deposit. After the expected number of slams with sledgehammers, they are caught in the act. In the closing shot, however, they are pardoned by President Roosevelt, who also promises the boy his operation. Overdone sentimentality at start and end, but good stooging in the middle. "No Census, No Feeling" (1940, #50) badly needs a plot. Forced to take a job as census takers, they wind up interviewing each other, then playing bridge for a Margaret Dumont-type socialite. After an overly long sequence concerning the effects of alum in the punch, they try to continue their census taking on a football field. Curly has a great comic reaction to the alum, but this film is too disjointed to please. The plot of "Some More of Samoa" (1941, #59) is only slightly more unified. Having destroyed a rare tree, the Stooges are hired by its owner to find a replacement on the Isle of Rhum Boogie. Special treats abound as Curly backs into a vitamin syringe and grows like Alice in Wonderland, among other adventures. As always, the bald brother gets all the best situations, and the lack of a real plot seems almost a quibble. --Frank Behrens