''Gents Without Cents'' is a 1944

short subject A short film is a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film or ...

directed by

Jules White Jules White (born Julius Weiss; 17 September 1900 – 30 April 1985) was an American film director and producer best known for his short-subject comedies starring The Three Stooges. Early years White began working in motion pictures in the ...

and starring American

slapstick Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. Slapstick may involve both intentional violence and violence by mishap, often resulting from inept use of props such as ...

comedy team

The Three Stooges The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy team active from 1922 until 1970, best remembered for their 190 short-subject films by Columbia Pictures. Their hallmark styles were physical, farce, and slapstick comedy. Six total ...

(

Moe Howard Moses Harry Horwitz (June 19, 1897 – May 4, 1975), better known by his stage name Moe Howard, was an American comedian and actor. He is best known as the leader and straight man of the Three Stooges, the farce comedy team who starred in motion ...

Larry Fine Louis Feinberg (October 4, 1902 – January 24, 1975), better known by his stage name Larry Fine, was an American actor, comedian and musician. He is best known as a member of the comedy act the Three Stooges and was often called "The Middle St ...

and

Curly Howard Jerome Lester Horwitz (October 22, 1903 – January 18, 1952), better known by his stage name Curly Howard, was an American comedian and actor. He was a member of The Three Stooges comedy team, which also featured his elder brothers Moe and ...

). It is the 81st of 190 Stooge shorts released by

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Trade name, doing business as Columbia Pictures, is an American film Production company, production and Film distributor, distribution company that is the flagship unit of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group ...

Plot

The Stooges are vaudevillians rehearsing a comedy sketch in their apartment. Faced with the obstacle of noisy neighbors upstairs disrupting their rehearsals, the trio unexpectedly encounters three talented dancers, Flo, Mary, and Shirley (played by acrobatic dancers Lindsay Bourquin, Laverne Thompson, and Betty Phares, who are billed simply as "Lindsay, Laverne, Betty"). A fortuitous friendship ensues, leading the group to seek representation from talent agent Manny Weeks. Weeks is unimpressed at first because the trio sings a corny song called "We Just Dropped In to Say Hello". He brightens when they start a more up-to-date, jazzy nonsense

scat-singing Originating in vocal jazz, scat singing or scatting is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all. In scat singing, the singer improvises melodies and rhythms using the voice solely as an instrument ...

number called "Rat-tat-toodle-oodle-day-ay". Weeks gives them a chance to entertain defense workers at the Noazark Shipbuilding Company. Their physical-comedy "Slowly I Turned" routine captivates the audience, propelling the Stooges and their newfound friends into the spotlight when they offer to replace the scheduled headliners. Weeks, impressed by their performance, extends an offer to the Stooges for a Broadway debut. Amid the whirlwind of opportunities, the Stooges grapple with the prospect of leaving their romantic partners behind, ultimately culminating in a series of nuptials and a chase scene reminiscent of their "Slowly I Turned" routine.

Production notes

"Slowly I Turned" is an old

burlesque A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects.

sketch introduced by veteran comic

Joey Faye Joey Faye (born Joseph Antony Palladino, July 12, 1909 or 1910 or 1902 – April 26, 1997) was an American comedian and actor. Born in New York City, he gained fame as a comic in vaudeville and claimed that he created two of vaudeville's more re ...

Northeast Modern Language Association, "Slowly I Turned: Niagara Falls in American Popular Culture", Summer 2023. and used by many comedians including

Abbott and Costello Abbott and Costello were an American comedy duo composed of comedians Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, whose work in radio, film, and television made them the most popular comedy team of the 1940s and 1950s, and the highest-paid entertainers in t ...

: a derelict goes crazy every time he hears a certain word or phrase, and assaults the innocent bystander who said the word. The Stooges' version, in which the trigger phrase is "Niagara Falls", was filmed in 1943 for the feature film '' Good Luck, Mr. Yates'', but the scene was cut at the last minute. Instead of wasting the footage, producer-director

built ''Gents Without Cents'' around it. The new scenes were filmed June 14–16, 1944. ''Gents Without Cents'' is the first Stooge film to employ a

syncopated In music, syncopation is a variety of rhythms played together to make a piece of music, making part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat (music), off-beat. More simply, syncopation is "a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of ...

, jazzy version of "

Three Blind Mice "Three Blind Mice" is an English nursery rhyme and musical round.I. Opie and P. Opie, ''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 306. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 3753. ...

" as the Stooges' theme song. The new version is in the key of F, while the key of G was previously utilized. This syncopated version would be used briefly after the next film, ''

No Dough Boys ''No Dough Boys'' is a 1944 short subject directed by Jules White starring American slapstick comedy team The Three Stooges (Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard). It is the 82nd entry in the series released by Columbia Pictures starring the ...

''. This version was revamped during the

Shemp Howard Shemp Howard (born Samuel Horwitz; March 11, 1895 – November 22, 1955) was an American comedian and actor. He is best known as the third Stooge in The Three Stooges, a role he played when the act began in the early 1920s (1923–1932), while i ...

and

Joe Besser Joe Besser (born Jessel Besser, August 12, 1907 – March 1, 1988) was an American actor and comedian known for his impish humor and wimpy characters. He is best known for his brief stint as a member of The Three Stooges in movie short subject ...

era. The title is a play on "without sense." Other parodies include The Noazark ( Noah's Ark) Shipbuilding Company and show headliners, the Castor and Earle (

castor oil Castor oil is a vegetable oil pressed from castor beans, the seeds of the plant ''Ricinus communis''. The seeds are 40 to 60 percent oil. It is a colourless or pale yellow liquid with a distinct taste and odor. Its boiling point is and its den ...

) Revue. The theatrical agent's sign lists business locations as "New York, Chicago, London ... Berlin soon". This film was released just a few months after

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...

, at a time when Allied forces were making steady advances. The scat-singing part of the Stooges' audition includes parodies of

Hideki Tōjō was a Japanese general and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1941 to 1944 during the Second World War. His leadership was marked by widespread state violence and mass killings perpetrated in the name of Japanese nationalis ...

(Larry),

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...

(Curly), and

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

(Moe). Television broadcasts of this short in the 2020s often cut Larry's culturally insensitive Japanese imitation. An obvious flub was left in the short at approximately 12:27 (the end of the "Niagara Falls" routine) as Larry misses the line "step-by-step", going directly to "inch by inch" while Moe says the line correctly. It is unclear why director

Ray Enright Ray Enright (March 25, 1896 – April 3, 1965) was an American film director. He directed 73 films between 1927–53, many of them for Warner Bros. He oversaw comedy films like Joe E. Brown vehicles, five of the six informal pairings of Joa ...

left the mistake in; using an alternate, correct take would have taken only a few minutes, unless he felt such a mistake would be consistent with the amateur entertainment Howard, Fine, and Howard were supposed to be providing in the short.

References

External links

"Slowly I Turned": A Piece of America's Pop Culture
- credits Joey Faye (1909-1997) as originator * {{Authority control 1944 films 1944 comedy films American black-and-white films Columbia Pictures short films Films directed by Jules White The Three Stooges films Niagara Falls in fiction American comedy short films 1940s English-language films 1940s American films

Plot

Production notes

See also

References

External links