Dunked in the Deep

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Dunked in the Deep is a 1949 short-subject comedy film starring the Three Stooges (Moe, Larry, and Shemp). It was produced and directed by Jules White and written by Felix Adler. Co-starring in the short is Gene Roth as 'Mr. Borscht.'

The Stooges are tricked into becoming stowaways by their neighbor Borscht, a spy for a fictitious USSR-like country. Stranded on a freighter on the high seas, and sustained by eating salami, they discover that their 'friend' has concealed stolen microfilm in watermelons. After a wild chase, the Boys overtake Borscht and recover the microfilm.

[edit] Trivia

Dunked was remade in 1956 as Commotion on the Ocean, which also reuses footage from the Stooge short Crime on Their Hands.

Hiding microfilm in watermelons is an allusion to an actual event from the previous year. In 1948, Time Magazine's managing editor Whittaker Chambers, a former Communist spy turned government informer, accused Alger Hiss of being a member of the Communist Party and a spy for the Soviet Union. In presenting evidence against Hiss, Chambers produced the Pumpkin Papers: four rolls of microfilm of State Department documents, which Chambers had concealed in a hollowed-out pumpkin on his Maryland farm.