Make 'Em Laugh (The Funny Business of America)
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Featuring Moe, Larry and Curly
18 min. (Short Subject)
The boys are stowaways on a train box-car filled with furniture bound for Hollywood where they hope to break into movies and become stars. Arriving at the Carnation Pictures Studios. Fuller Rath, the studio general manager, receives a telegram from the home office telling him that a certain "Mr. Smith and his two assistants" will arrive to take over the supervision of the studios. He mistakes the Stooges as the executives and gives them free reign over the studios, where they proceed to disrupt and destroy the production of a romantic drama.
A scene with the Stooges demonstrating kissing techniques was cut when originally released to television in 1958 by Columbia's Screen Gems, deemed too risque for children's programming. 1960/70s Screen Gems syndication prints restored the scene. Home video versions present the complete film.
The original version of the script cast the Stooges as studio scriptwriters who take control of the film, and burn down the soundstage! These scenes, from Jules White's files at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences Library, were transcribed in The Three Stooges Journal # 100 (Winter 2001). The film's script was revised during filming. A production still of the Stooges amidst a burnt soundstage (also from White's file) in evidence of the original script; that photo was printed in Journal # 100. There is no known evidence that any of the "fire" scenes were actually filmed.
Studio records show MOVIE MANIACS was filmed October 25 - 29, 1935. An additional call sheet in Jules White's file is dated November 27, implying that scene revisions were filmed a month later. If revised scenes took more than that one day is unknown at this time.
The aforementioned "kissing" segment is notorious for a dialogue segment, with Eve Reynolds referring to Curly as "Mr. Howard," although she shouldn't know who he is. That scene is a holdover, filmed when the original script was still in play, and left in after the plot was revised.
Jerry Howard
Curly
Moe Howard
Moe
Larry Fine
Larry
Bud Jamison
Fuller Rath
Jack Kenney
Rath's assistant
Charlie Phillips
Surveyor
Blackie Whiteford
Studio guard
Heinie Conklin
Studio guard
Kenneth Harlan
Leading man
Mildred Harris
Leading lady
Elaine Waters
'Marie,' maid actress
Harry Semels
Cecil Z. Swinehardt
Hilda Title
Script girl
Lois Lindsey
Moe's kissing partner
Althea Henley
Larry's kissing partner
Eve Reynolds
Curly's kissing instructor
Eddie Laughton
Grip
Antrim Short
Cameraman
Charlie Phillips
Asst. cameraman
Harry Tenbrook
Lighting technician
Lew Davis
Boom operator
Bert Young
Studio crewman
Charles Dorety
Studio crewman
George Gray
Studio crewman
Harry Keatan
Studio crewman
John Barrymore
Himself, photograph
Unidentified MOVIE MANIACS 1
Studio crew
Unidentified MOVIE MANIACS 2
Studio cop
Jules White
Producer
Del Lord
Director
Felix Adler
Story and Screenplay
Benjamin Kline
Photography
William A. Lyon
Film Editor
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