Topic: Mr. Noisy (1946) - Shemp Howard

[metaldams]

http://threestooges.net/filmography/episode/280
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038754/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xmx5wvM0Az0

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ard71wnFHqI

Watch parts 1 and 2 of MR. NOISY in the links above



      A remake of Charley Chase's THE HECKLER, this is a very well written and entertaining short no matter what version you watch.  I am going to give the edge to the Chase version for nitpicking reasons, mainly that the Chase is the original and it has that 1940 prime Columbia gloss versus the somewhat lower budget of a 1946 short.  A few of the shots are staged better in THE HECKLER, mainly the front shot in the former versus the side when the main comic character goes into the hotel room and confronts the baseball team.  Just personal preference, but really, both versions are a lot of fun.  Just want to say one more thing about THE HECKLER in that it is easily the best performance I've seen Monte Collins give.  I've never seen him so understated and effective in an extended comic scene.

      Now for MR. NOISY, basically the same script as THE HECKLER.  The premise is an annoying guy at a baseball game with a loud voice heckling a ball player to the point of distraction where it effects his play on the field.  In the mean time, he annoys every spectator at the game where gag after gag flows at a wonderful pace.  The spectators seem to be able to defend themselves somewhat better than WHERE THE PEST BEGINS, which make the results more tolerable for me.  Vernon Dent is wonderful in both versions, and a lot of mileage is done with cigars, the passing of hot dogs, spilt mustards, toupees, crying babies, and Shemp's character being hilariously oblivious to the fact he's a distraction, especially funny when he comments on the crying baby.

      Shemp, as well as Chase, are both wonderfully suited for this high octane role, (for contrast, imagine if this role were assigned to Joe Derita), and to date, this is the solo role where I really feel Shemp gets to be himself.  Shemp is especially funny when the ice is on him while sleeping and he's doing his patented one liners and snore, a bit extended from what Chase did there.

      As far as plausibility, the whole short is implausible (who the heck would be loud enough in a sold out stadium to distract a star athlete to such extreme, for example), but this isn't reality, this short is its own world, and in the context of this world, everything works.  If Shemp yelling can distract a ball player from catching a routine fly ball, why not take the gag to its final conclusion and prevent gangsters from shooting him with bullets?  Works in the context of the short, and this context makes this work much better than the dozens of bullet in the fanny cop out endings we get in Stooge shorts.  There's a reason and a build up for thos final bullets, along with a punch line.  That final shot of Shemp is great.

      Overall, best short I've reviewed in a long time.

9/10

[Shemp_Diesel]

Probably the second best of the Shemp solos--although the last one he did with Jean Willes and Christine McIntyre was good too; a pity I can't remember the name of that one. 

7.5 out of 10....

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

O K, here's a couple of comments from the perspective of 2016, which I realize is dirty pool, but it does effect the entire second half:  first, you can't give a guy laryngitis by shoving ice in his pajama top, even if you can just waltz into his unlocked room and somehow not wake him up in the process.  Second, open gunfire at a baseball game is an atrocity that we haven't yet encountered, thank God, in 2016, but is too close to reality these days to be funny in the least.  The first half is O K though, even if the loudmouth premise is farfetched, and Shemp keeps things rolling like the pro he is.

[Paul Pain]

O K, here's a couple of comments from the perspective of 2016, which I realize is dirty pool, but it does effect the entire second half:  first, you can't give a guy laryngitis by shoving ice in his pajama top, even if you can just waltz into his unlocked room and somehow not wake him up in the process.  Second, open gunfire at a baseball game is an atrocity that we haven't yet encountered, thank God, in 2016, but is too close to reality these days to be funny in the least.  The first half is O K though, even if the loudmouth premise is farfetched, and Shemp keeps things rolling like the pro he is.

Shemp is at his best to date.  He is hilarious here.  Chase is better in the original, but this is great too.

The problem is as the Big Chief notes: farfetched and insane.  It'd be so easy to get a couple of sickos like that busted big time.  It's obvious in the doctor's office that they've essentially kidnapped Shemp.  And how thin are the hotel room walls that the coach and Ole can find Shemp that easily?

Ole Margarine is a goofy name that still works today as there are still idiots who use oleomargarine!

Great performance by all involved, but too many plot holes makes for...

8/10

I am excited for next Tuesday where a famous Stooge actor/actress has a performance greater than any he/she ever gave in a Stooge short!

[JWF]

Question on the ending of the Chase and Shemp versions of this short..

In the Chase version that I have seen, the guys start shooting him, and it immediately cuts to the closing Columbia logo.  Was something cut out?  The gag seems truncated.

In the Shemp version, it ends with him in closeup saying "Boy, can I call them" as the bad guys fire away....again, the gag seems to have been edited poorly.  You can't see what happened.  Did they shoot him or what?  Or did they miss him (as he says, "boy, can I call 'em...)?

[GreenCanaries]

Probably the second best of the Shemp solos--although the last one he did with Jean Willes and Christine McIntyre was good too; a pity I can't remember the name of that one. 

7.5 out of 10....

BRIDE AND GLOOM (1947). The fourth and last of the "Shemp does Chase" rehashes (this one of 1939's THE AWFUL GOOF).

Question on the ending of the Chase and Shemp versions of this short..

In the Chase version that I have seen, the guys start shooting him, and it immediately cuts to the closing Columbia logo.  Was something cut out?  The gag seems truncated.

In the Shemp version, it ends with him in closeup saying "Boy, can I call them" as the bad guys fire away....again, the gag seems to have been edited poorly.  You can't see what happened.  Did they shoot him or what?  Or did they miss him (as he says, "boy, can I call 'em...)?

I believe that the gag is that, yes, they missed him because of his heckling.

In this video of the Chase version, after cut to black and the shots heard, Chase laughs and yells, "Oh, boy, can I call 'em!"

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

Mr. Noisy is the hardest to take of all Shemp's characters. I can grant the implausibility of his getting a cold overnight by having ice cubes on his chest (well-established movie magic in those days), but the ending, with the two guys firing away at him and him yelling his trademark phrase, "Watch you miss me! Can I call 'em or can I call 'em?", is appalling, incredible, and not funny. But the short is pretty funny up to that point, if you can adjust to the character's obnoxiousness.