So asks Ben Weldon, in the days before he met Superman. Ben's the guy with carpet dirt smeared all over his face and with his toupee, saturated with glue, stuck on top of his head. And the Stooges are stupid? The great Kenneth MacDonald, as "Slick" Bill Wick, lets out a chuckle: he's found his pigeons. But not so fast! The Stooges get wise to Hammond Egger's crooked ways and switch allegiance to Able Lamb Stewer, a byproduct of early cloning experiments carried out with Dolly the Sheep's ancestors (and Stewer's likeness on his campaign posters will bear me out on this). Anyway, Slick Bill is not amused, and extreme violence and mayhem ensues. That's the plot, but as in all Stooges shorts, it's tertiary, not even secondary. The first reel is classic Stooges: they're janitors, and therefore allegoric to the proletariat masses, who, as irony would have it, get screwed by the very politicians they vote into office. But Slick Bill, the campaign manager, needs mindless yes-men to vote as they are told at the upcoming convention. Now, I've already described what happens to Ben Weldon, Slick's assistant. This alone should serve as a warning: do not underestimate the Stooges. Anyway, the second reel of the short starts out in sheer surrealism. The Stooges wreak havoc unto themselves in what can only be described as a political convention of three. I'll just say here that Shemp forever won my heart with his very short "two-hour week" speech, superlative even to Moe's brilliant paean to political bombast. I'll also say that the treatment endured by Slick Bill and Ben Weldon in the Stooges' bathtub is not for the faint of heart. Remember the effect "Psycho" had on shower-takers? Well, I've never again taken a bath since first seeing "Three Dark Horses"! But if you're smart, or politically inclined (mutually exclusive events), this short film is a must-see.
Review of Three Dark Horses
