Hot Stuff
Entry updated 9 September 2022. Tagged: Film.
Short US film (1956). Columbia Pictures. Directed by Jules White. Written by Felix Adler (screenplay) and Elwood Ullman (story). Cast includes Larry Fine, Moe Howard, Joe Palma (uncredited) and Philip Van Zandt. Seen in footage taken from Fuelin' Around (1949) are Shemp Howard, Christine McGuire, Hans Schumm (uncredited) and Emil Sitka. 16 minutes. Black and white.
This short film is a remake of Fuelin' Around, using much of its footage with some new scenes to match its slightly reworked plot. The plot is essentially the same: the Stooges (Moe Howard, Fine, and Shemp Howard) are taken to Anemia by three spies when Moe is mistaken for Professor Sneed (Sitka), who is about to perfect a revolutionary new Rocket fuel. Prodded by their captors, they improbably contrive to create an effective fuel, which they employ to escape from confinement and, with the real Sneed and his daughter (Christine McGuire), drive away by means of a jeep powered by their rocket fuel.
This film exists because Shemp Howard died in 1955; obliged to produce a number of shorts in 1956, the Stooges remade three earlier films, adding new footage featuring Moe, Larry, and an uncredited Joe Palma to replace Shemp (seen only from the rear); to keep the short to the standard length of 16 minutes, some scenes with members of the supporting cast were removed, rendering certain aspects of the plot less clear. The most interesting change is that the Stooges are recast as undercover agents pretending to be carpet layers and assigned by the government to protect a rocket Scientist, reflecting the attitude that such research was regarded as more important in 1956 as America approached the dawn of the Space Age (see Space Flight). The Stooges also devise a new rocket fuel in their first feature film, Have Rocket, Will Travel (1959). [GW]
see also: Three Stooges Films.
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