Cactus Makes Perfect
| Cactus Makes Perfect | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Del Lord |
| Produced by |
Del Lord Hugh McCollum |
| Written by |
Monte Collins Elwood Ullman |
| Starring |
Moe Howard Larry Fine Curly Howard Vernon Dent Eddie Laughton Monte Collins Ernie Adams |
| Cinematography | Benjamin H. Kline |
| Editing by | Jerome Thom |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release dates | February 26, 1942 (U.S.) |
| Running time | 17' 18" |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Cactus Makes Perfect is the 61st 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.
Plot
The film opens with the Stooges' mother (played by male actor Monte Collins) attempting to wake up her three boys without success. "Get out of bed you lazy loafers!" she screams to no avail. Finally, she yanks a rope that leads from the kitchen to the bed where the trio is sleeping soundly. This causes the bed to spin vertically until they are expelled.
Curly receives a letter from the Inventors' Association, who state that his Gold Collar Button Retriever is "incomprehensible and utterly impractical." Naturally, Curly misinterprets this as a success, and the trio leave their mother's home to make their fortune. In transit, they are swindled into buying a map leading to a lost mine in the Old West. After actually finding a lost mine, the Stooges run afoul of two down-on-their-luck prospectors (Vernon Dent, Ernie Adams), who try to rob the boys out of their dough. Moe and Larry flee to an abandoned hotel where Curly hid the gold in a safe ("It's safe in the safe".) The miners show up, and they all take refuge in the safe room. The miners drill through the door, which Curly attributes to termites, and throw a stick of dynamite in. After a little back and forth, the stick fizzles out. Believing it to be a dud, the boys burst out laughing and Curly chucks the dynamite, causing it to actually explode.
Production notes
Filmed on August 7-11, 1941,[1] the title Cactus Makes Perfect parodies the proverb "practice makes perfect."[2]
Curly's remark, "I shoot an arrow into the air, where it lands I do not care: I get my arrows wholesale!"[3] parodies Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "The Arrow and the Song," which begins, "I shot an arrow into the air/It fell to earth, I knew not where..."[4]
References
- ↑ Pauley, Jim (2012). The Three Stooges Hollywood Filming Locations. Solana Beach, California: Santa Monica Press, LLC. p. 66. ISBN 9781595800701.
- ↑ Solomon, Jon. (2002) The Complete Three Stooges: The Official Filmography and Three Stooges Companion, p. 207; Comedy III Productions, Inc., ISBN 0-9711868-0-4
- ↑ http://www.threestooges.net/filmography/episode/61
- ↑ http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/hwlongfellow/bl-hwl-arrow2.htm
