“Scrambled Brains” (1951) starring The Three Stooges / Z-View
Scrambled Brains (1951)
Director: Jules White
Writer: Felix Adler
Stars: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Shemp Howard, Emile Sitka, Vernon Dent and Pamela Britton.
Tagline: Those cut-up kings in their funniest free-for-all fun frolic!
The Plot…
Shemp is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He is hallucinating and nothing seems to help. In desperation, Larry and Moe call in Dr. Gesundheit (Sitka). If he can’t help Shemp then it’s back to the sanatorium. Let the good times roll.
Thoughts (beware of spoilers)…
Larry Fine considered this his favorite of all the Stooges’ shorts.
Muhammad Ali was famous for saying, “I’d fight that chump in a phone booth.” There is an extended scene with our boys fighting Vernon Dent in a phone booth!
Scrambled Brains (1951) rates 3 of 5 stars.
Love it! There is an endless series of stunts in a phone booth of all places!
They happen so fast one after the other it’s awesome! How they dreamed
this up and how they filmed it would be awesome to see.
They go to a phone booth to call the doctor and they get stuck in it with
Vernon Dent! Larry tries to get a nickel out of his pocket for the call, and
Dent gets an elbow in the face, Larry drops the nickel and kneels down
to get it, Larry gets his hand stepped on, Dent gets his box of eggs busted;
it drips on Larry. He bends over to see and pours his milk on Larrys’ head!
Larry punches the bottom of Dents groceries and the whole bag goes over
Dents’ head! He gets his cake in his face; wipes it off and smears it on Moes’
face and drops the rest onto Larrys’ head! Dent yells, Shemp says it’s not his fault
and Dent bites his nose! Moe unscrews the lightbulb, puts it in Dents’ mouth,
Shemp punches him in the chin and makes the bulb break in his mouth! Geez!
Now they’re fighting and knock the booth over! Shemp spits out all the nickels
from the paybox, Dent has the dial in his mouth; Moe dials it, and it says,
“You have the wrong number!”
I’d love to see behind the scenes of so many of their shorts. Great idea!!