"For Crimin' Out Loud" is one of the very last shorts the Stooges made before Shemp Howard's sudden death in November of 1955. Jules White receives the directing credit here, although this short was practically a complete remake, using ample stock footage from a wonderful Stooge comedy directed by Edward Bernds, "Who Done It?" (1949). Hence, Jules White is only accountable for the new footage, and no wonder that Ed Bernds was displeased that many of his Stooge shorts were being chopped up and remade with White receiving sole directing credit. In any event, 99.9% of the new footage for this short occurs during the first several minutes as the Stooges are seen monkeying around at their detective agency. And this is where the major fault of the picture lies. Jules White was known for not being the Stooges' best director, largely because he forced too much unnecessary slapstick, especially in his later shorts of the 1950s. The opening scene at the Stooges' Miracle Detective Agency ("If We Solve Your Crime, It's a Miracle") contains a great deal of forced slapstick that slows down the pacing of the comedy, whereas Edward Bernds would ask Moe, for example, to quickly execute a slap and go right on to the next thing to keep a lively pace.
Once this new footage is out of the way, however, the comedy gets better, as we see some great highlights from the stock footage from "Who Done It?" Moe crushes Larry's hand with a desk drawer, and Larry's look of pain was never better. Moe grabs Shemp's accordion camera and unknowingly bashes the goon's head (the goon is played by Duke York, who played several other monster types in Stooge shorts). Shemp stumbles and flips after he swallows a poisoned drink. Moe slugs Larry and Shemp while the goon slugs Moe from behind. And the goon takes turns chasing Moe, Larry, and Shemp in the corridors, with Larry's reaction to the goon being the funniest ("Hey, what'd he say? YIKE!!!").
As great as this stock footage is, it is difficult to erase the memory of the forced slapstick in the opening new footage, and this unfortunately gives "For Crimin' Out Loud" the presumably bad reputation it has. But I'm of the belief that every film has its highlights. So if you do happen to catch the short on TV, try as much as you can to gain a few laughs from it.
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