Slippery Silks
Slippery Silks is a 1936 short subject directed by Preston Black starring American slapstick comedy team The Three Stooges (Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard). It is the 19th entry in the series released by Columbia Pictures starring the comedians, who released 190 shorts for the studio between 1934 and 1959.
| Slippery Silks | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Preston Black |
| Produced by | Jules White |
| Written by | Ewart Adamson |
| Starring | Moe Howard Larry Fine Curly Howard Symona Boniface Vernon Dent William Irving Eddie Laughton Jack "Tiny" Lipson June Gittelson Lew Davis |
| Cinematography | Benjamin H. Kline |
| Edited by | William A. Lyon |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 17:15 |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Plot
The Stooges are furniture makers hired to duplicate a priceless antique Chinese cabinet on loan for a $50,000 bond from a local museum to a Mr. Morgan (Vernon Dent). Once the inept Stooges set to work, the valuable cabinet is quickly cut in half by Curly, and smashed to pieces by Moe, and the trio barely escape from the enraged Morgan. While on the run, the boys learn that they have inherited a fancy dress boutique, the Madame de France, from their recently deceased Uncle Pete. They enter the fashion business, designing women's fashions which resemble the furniture they built when they were carpenters. They are hired to put on a fashion show by a woman who turns out to be Morgan's wife, Mrs. Morgan Morgan (Symona Boniface). When Mr. Morgan arrives, he recognizes the Stooges as the vandals who destroyed his cabinet, and pummels Curly vigorously. Moe throws a pastry but misses his target and hits one of the fashion show guests; more cream puffs are hurled and soon the entire room is engaged in a free-for-all. The fight ends when three women knock the Stooges unconscious with mannequin legs.
Production notes
Slippery Silks was filmed on June 10–15, 1936.[1] It marks the Stooges first bona fide pie/pastry fight. While the fight primarily consists of cream puffs, there is one pie launched during the melee when Curly accidentally steps in front of Moe's line of fire to grab a "lucky penny", and stands back up just in time to get hit in the face with a pie. The first short that featured a pie fight of sorts was in Pop Goes the Easel, in which sculptor's clay is thrown at unsuspecting targets.[2]
Moe Howard stated in his autobiography that over 150 pies were thrown.[3] In Moe's June 8, 1973 appearance on The Mike Douglas Show, he revealed to Douglas that, in making the cream puff-fight scene, he was responsible for all the offscreen throws (minus the shots where he was onscreen). He remarked that "the studio auditors claimed (he) had saved them tens of thousands of dollars with my accuracy in the pie throw."[4] The pie fight scenes were used in the Muppet Babies episode, "Good, Clean, Fun".[2]
The ending theme of "Listen to the Mockingbird" features different instrumentation.[2]
References
- Pauley, Jim (2012). The Three Stooges Hollywood Filming Locations. Solana Beach, California: Santa Monica Press, LLC. p. 234. ISBN 9781595800701.
- Solomon, Jon (2002). The Complete Three Stooges: The Official Filmography and Three Stooges Companion. Glendale, California: Comedy III Productions, Inc. pp. 94–95. ISBN 0-9711868-0-4.
- Howard, Moe (1979) [1977]. Moe Howard and The 3 Stooges: The Pictorial Biography of the Wildest Trio in the History of American Entertainment. Citadel Press. p. 81. ISBN 0-8065-0723-3.
- Moe Howard (of the Three Stooges) on the Mike Douglas Show, retrieved 2019-10-22
