Make 'Em Laugh (The Funny Business of America)
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Featuring Moe, Larry and Curly
18.5 min. (Short Subject)
Moe, Larry and Curly are three out-of-work tramps who are hired to promote a university football team. They're soon mistaken for the school's famous star athletes, "The Three Horsemen." As the star athletes, the Stooges are hired by a gangster to secretly play on his professional team, but of course the boys know nothing about football and bring their own set of skills to the game.
Costarring Lucille Ball.
Larry said that there were numerous injuries while this short was made, including him losing a tooth when he was socked by Joseph Young (actor Robert Young's brother), and Curly broke his leg after riding down the dumbwaiter. In the scene with the photographers during the football game, Larry insisted the studio use stunt doubles, one of whom was badly injured.
The original ending had the Stooges retelling the story to their children, but only photo stills remain of that footage (see Moe Howard & the 3 Stooges pp. 6-7, 68-69, 79 and 81). The scripted version with the Stooges' sons was published in The Three Stooges Book of Scripts, by Joan Howard Maurer, Citadel Press 1987.
Opening title music is "Eastmoor College March," by Louis Silvers; see The Three Stooges Journal # 87 (Fall 1998).
Larry Fine
Larry
Jerry Howard
Curly
Moe Howard
Moe
Walter Long
Joe Stacks
Lucille Ball
Daisy Simms
Gertie Green
Lulu Banks
Phyllis Crane
Molly Gray
Joseph Young
Pete
Milton Douglas
Henchman
Lynton Brent
Man panhandled by Moe
Jimmy Phillips
2nd man panhandled by Moe
Larry Wheat
3rd man panhandled by Moe
Bobby Burns
Man panhandled by Larry
Johnny Kascier
Man panhandled by Curly
Harry Bowen
Boulder Dam publicity man
Dutch Hendrian
Referee
William J. Irving
Photographer
Charles Dorety
Photographer
Alex Hirschfeld
Little Moe, scenes deleted
Joe Levine
Little Larry, scenes deleted
Billy Wolfstone
Little Curly, scenes deleted
Raymond McCarey
Director
Jules White
Producer
Felix Adler
Story and Screenplay
Griffin Jay
Story and Screenplay
Henry Freulich
Photography
James Sweeney
Film Editor
Charles Althouse
Sound Engineer
Louis Silvers
Music
Morey Lightfoot
Assistant Director
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