ThreeStooges.net :: HOLD THAT LION!

Featuring Moe, Larry and Shemp

Released: July 17, 1947
Columbia Short Subject
Length: 16.58 min.

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The Stooges' inheritance from their late Uncle Ambrose has been stolen by crooked investment broker Icabod Slipp. The boys go over to Slipp's office to subpoena him, but he beats each of them up, rips up their subpoenas and then takes off on a train with the boys' inheritance. The Stooges trail him to the train he's on, but before finding him, they accidentally let loose a lion on the train. Later on, the boys finally capture Slipp and get their inheritance money back from him.

Curly Howard, who had retired, makes a cameo in this film as a snoring passenger.

Shemp had difficulties with doing the scenes with the lion, so the prop men had to put a pane of glass in between the lion and the Stooges when they're in the same box together. If you look carefully, you'll notice the reflection of the Stooges in front of the lion during that scene.

Footage from this short appears in three later Stooge shorts: BOOTY AND THE BEAST, LOOSE LOOT, and TRICKY DICKS, all released in 1953.

HOLD THAT LION! premiered the final version of "Three Blind Mice" as the Stooges' theme music, an updated, faster version arranged by Lyle "Spud" Murphy. With minor updates, it will be the Stooges' theme orchestration thru the end of their short subject releases in 1959; see The Three Stooges Journal # 91 (Fall 1999).

A scripted dialogue sequence not used in the film is presented in The Three Stooges Journal # 127 (Fall 2008).

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Production Notes
Working Title(s):	The Lion and the Louse
Title Origin:	Football term "hold that line", and possibly reference to lyric "hold that tiger" from song "Tiger Rag".
Prod. No.:	4087
Shooting Days:	4 days From: 1947-01-28 To: 1947-01-31

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