Hokus Pokus (1949 film)

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Hokus Pokus

Directed by	Jules White
Produced by	Jules White
Written by	Felix Adler
Starring	Moe Howard Larry Fine Shemp Howard Mary Ainslee David Bond Vernon Dent Ned Glass Jimmy Lloyd
Cinematography	Vincent J. Farrar
Editing by	Edwin H. Bryant
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	May 5, 1949
Running time	16' 08"
Country	United States
Language	English
Preceded by	Who Done It?
Followed by	Fuelin' Around
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Hokus Pokus is the 115th short subject starring American slapstick comedy team the Three Stooges. The trio made a total of 190 shorts for Columbia Pictures between 1934 and 1959.

1 Plot
2 Notes
3 References
4 Further reading

[edit] Plot

Shemp flips the sunnyside down eggs over his shoulder onto Moe's face. Shemp then asks "Hey, Moe, where'd you get the sunglasses?"

The Stooges are three paperhangers who also look after invalid Mary (Mary Ainslee), who is confined to a wheelchair. The seemingly helpless blonde, however, is trying to swindle her insurance company out of $25,000, as she is not handicapped in the least. While the Stooges are at work hanging posters, they are taken by one poster that advertises a great hypnotist, Svengarlic ("He'll steal your breath away!" the poster announces). The Stooges want the hypnotist to work his magic on Mary so that she can walk again, but Svengarlic is more interested in winning an audience by hypnotizing the Stooges. Under his spell, they walk out onto a flagpole high on a building and dance. But a distracted bicyclist knocks Svengarlic over and the Stooges are abruptly awakened. They immediately panic when they see where they are, then the flagpole breaks, sending them flying through an open window. The boys land directly in the insurance office where Mary is about to be handed her check. Startled, she jumps out of her wheelchair, exposing her scheme.

The trio dance up a storm on a flagpole in Hokus Pokus.

[edit] Notes

The Stooges make an amusing reference to Sing Sing Correctional Facility, in which Shemp believes he has hypnotized Moe into thinking he is locked up in the infamous prison.
The character name 'Svengarlic' is a parody of 'Svengali,' the name of a fictional character in George du Maurier's 1894 novel Trilby.^[1]
Hokus Pokus was reworked in 1956 as Flagpole Jitters, using ample stock footage. In particular, the two pictures have very different endings: Mary is a fraud here, whereas in the later picture she is actually paraplegic. In the remake Svengarlic is the fraud.

[edit] References

^ Solomon, Jon. (2002) The Complete Three Stooges: The Official Filmography and Three Stooges Companion, p. 256; Comedy III Productions, Inc., ISBN 0971186804

[edit] Further reading

Moe Howard and the Three Stooges; by Moe Howard [1], (Citadel Press, 1977).
The Three Stooges Scrapbook; by Jeff Lenburg, Joan Howard Maurer, Greg Lenburg [2] (Citadel Press, 1994).
The Three Stooges: An Illustrated History, From Amalgamated Morons to American Icons; by Michael Fleming [3](Broadway Publishing, 2002).
One Fine Stooge: A Frizzy Life in Pictures; by Steve Cox and Jim Terry [4], (Cumberland House Publishing, 2006).
The Three Stooges: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Most Popular Comedy Team of All Time, by Jeff Forrester, Tom Forrester, Joe Wallison. [5], (Donaldson Books, 2004).