| Bubble Trouble | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Jules White |
| Produced by | Jules White |
| Written by | Felix Adler |
| Starring | Moe Howard Larry Fine Shemp Howard Emil Sitka Christine McIntyre |
| Cinematography | Ray Cory |
| Editing by | Edwin Bryant |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | October 8, 1953 (U.S.) |
| Running time | 16' 30" |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Bubble Trouble is the 151st 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.
Contents |
The Stooges operate a local drug store whose landlord, the cantankerous Amos Flint (Emil Sitka), informs them their lease is about to expire. Larry protests that the trio have had their establishment for a decade, and do not want to leave. As the four bicker, Flint's elderly wife Cerina (Christine McIntyre) enters the store, only to be berated by Flint for being an old hag. "25 years is enough," he coldly confirms. After he storms off, the boys take to the frail Cerina, who beings to weep that ever since she lost her beauty, Amos had threatened to leave. Both saddened and incensed, the Stooges offer Cerina their spare room in the back. Shemp, seeing this, hatches a plan to invent a "Fountain of Youth" to restore Cerina to her stunning beauty. Deeming the idea "tremendous, colossal and putrid," the Stooges flee to their pharmaceutical lab and mix together a powerful serum.
After several false tries, the trio give Cerina a taste of their Fountain of Youth, and she transforms into a fetching beauty right before their eyes. To celebrate her return to youth, Cerina prepares a Marshmallow Jumbo layer cake. Shemp is assigned to hunt down some of the sweet confection, but inadvertently retrieves bubblegum. The resulting celebration then finds the Stooges and Cerina blowing bubbles after every bite, with Shemp getting two bubbles out of his ears.
Several days later, Amos comes storming into the Stooges' drug store only to see the youthful Cerina flaunting her newfound beauty. Amos quickly reneges on his threat to evict the Stooges, and requests a dose of the youthful serum himself. However, Amos overdoses on the potent stuff, and transforms into a gorilla instead. Realizing this, he starts to beat up on the Stooges. In the midst of it, Amos knocks Larry silly and starts pounding Moe’s head onto the floor. Larry comes to and breaks a bottle of Chloroform on Amos’ head, knocking him out cold. Shemp helps Moe up and, upon discovering his flattened head, tempers it back to its normal look with a hammer (that subsequently gets ruined in the process). Larry gets the idea to put Amos in a cage and make a mint off a traveling show involving the only talking gorilla in captivity. Moe believes that TWO talking gorillas would be even better and tries to get Shemp to take some of the concoction. Shemp knocks the spoon into Moe’s mouth, and the film ends with Moe acting like a gorilla.