"Three Dark Horses" is a very good Shemp-Larry-Moe Three Stooges short directed by Jules White. The boys are three stupid janitors who are hired by crooked campaign manager Bill Wick (Kenneth MacDonald) and his assistant Jim (Ben Welden) to become their manipulated delegates for presidential candidate Hammond Egger. The boys are overly enthusiastic about their new assignment, but once they find out that Egger is a crook, they switch their vote in favor of the other candidate, Abel Lamb Stewer.
Highlights from "Three Dark Horses" include the following. Amidst all the hijinks the janitorial Stooges cause in Wick's office (and some of the slapstick is quite excessive), what really drives it home is when the Stooges' vacuum sucks up Jim's toupee; equally funny are the boys' attempts to pacify Jim and make his dirty toupee look like new. Larry adds a lot of sugar to his coffee, but he finds it way too sweet and offers it to Shemp, who adds a lot more sugar! A parrot winds up inside the Stooges' cooked turkey (a gag the boys used in a few earlier shorts as well), laughing when Shemp rubs its breast and sneezing when Moe adds black pepper; it then stands up and walks away, but not before Shemp unsuccessfully tries to clobber it.
In addition to the wonderfully sinister Kenneth MacDonald, who is a familiar heavy in various Stooge flicks with Shemp as the third Stooge, there is one other supporting actor in "Three Dark Horses" who bears mentioning: William "Bud" Jamison. Jamison's portrait appears on the Hammond Egger posters at the beginning of this short. He was a familiar supporting actor during the first decade of Stooge shorts featuring Curly as the third Stooge, but he unfortunately didn't live long enough to perform in any Stooge shorts featuring Shemp.
Highlights from "Three Dark Horses" include the following. Amidst all the hijinks the janitorial Stooges cause in Wick's office (and some of the slapstick is quite excessive), what really drives it home is when the Stooges' vacuum sucks up Jim's toupee; equally funny are the boys' attempts to pacify Jim and make his dirty toupee look like new. Larry adds a lot of sugar to his coffee, but he finds it way too sweet and offers it to Shemp, who adds a lot more sugar! A parrot winds up inside the Stooges' cooked turkey (a gag the boys used in a few earlier shorts as well), laughing when Shemp rubs its breast and sneezing when Moe adds black pepper; it then stands up and walks away, but not before Shemp unsuccessfully tries to clobber it.
In addition to the wonderfully sinister Kenneth MacDonald, who is a familiar heavy in various Stooge flicks with Shemp as the third Stooge, there is one other supporting actor in "Three Dark Horses" who bears mentioning: William "Bud" Jamison. Jamison's portrait appears on the Hammond Egger posters at the beginning of this short. He was a familiar supporting actor during the first decade of Stooge shorts featuring Curly as the third Stooge, but he unfortunately didn't live long enough to perform in any Stooge shorts featuring Shemp.