''Cactus Makes Perfect '' is a 1942
short subject directed by
Del Lord
Delmer "Del" Lord (October 7, 1894March 23, 1970) was a Canadian film director and actor best known as a director of Three Stooges films.
Career
Delmer Lord was born in the small town of Grimsby, Ontario, Canada. Interested in the theatre, he t ...
starring American
slapstick comedy team
The Three Stooges
The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy team active from 1922 until 1970, best remembered for their 190 short subject films by Columbia Pictures. Their hallmark styles were physical farce and slapstick. Six Stooges appeared ...
(
Moe Howard
Moses Harry Horwitz (June 19, 1897 – May 4, 1975), known professionally as Moe Howard, was an American actor and comedian. He is best known as the leader of The Three Stooges, the farce comedy team who starred in motion pictures and television ...
,
Larry Fine
Louis Feinberg (October 5, 1902 – January 24, 1975), known professionally as Larry Fine, was an American actor, comedian, and musician. He is best known as a member of the comedy act the Three Stooges.
Early life
Fine was born to a Russian Je ...
and
Curly Howard
Jerome Lester Horwitz (; October 22, 1903 – January 18, 1952), known professionally as Curly Howard, was an American actor and comedian. He was best known as a member of the American comedy team the Three Stooges, which also featured his elder ...
). It is the 61st entry in the series released by
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...
starring the comedians, who released 190 shorts for the studio between 1934 and 1959.
Plot
The film opens with the Stooges' mother (played by male actor
Monte Collins
Monte Collins (also credited as Monty Collins; December 3, 1898 – June 1, 1951) was an American film actor and screenwriter. He appeared in more than 160 films between 1920 and 1948. He also wrote for 32 films between 1930 and 1951.
Career ...
) attempting to wake up her three boys without success. "Get out of bed you lazy loafers!" she screams to no avail. Finally, she yanks a rope that leads from the kitchen to the bed where the trio is sleeping soundly. This causes the bed to spin horizontally until they fly off.
Curly receives a letter from the Inventors' Association, who state that his Gold Collar Button Retriever is "incomprehensible and utterly impractical." Naturally, Curly misinterprets this as a success, and the trio leave their mother's home to make their fortune. In transit, they are swindled into buying a map leading to a lost mine in the Old West. After actually finding a lost mine, the Stooges run afoul of two down-on-their-luck prospectors (
Vernon Dent
Vernon Bruce Dent (February 16, 1895 – November 5, 1963) was an American comic actor, who appeared in over 400 films. He co-starred in many short films for Columbia Pictures, frequently as the foil and the main antagonist and ally to The Thr ...
,
Ernie Adams) after Curly fires an arrow from his Gold Collar Button Retriever. The two then try to rob the boys out of their dough. Moe and Larry flee to an abandoned hotel where Curly hid the gold in a safe. ("It's safe in the safe".) The miners show up, and they all take refuge in the safe room. The miners drill through the door, which Curly attributes to termites, and throw a stick of dynamite in. After a little back and forth, the stick fizzles out. Believing it to be a dud, the boys burst out laughing and Curly chucks the dynamite, causing it to actually explode.
Production notes
Filmed on August 7–11, 1941,
the title ''Cactus Makes Perfect'' parodies the proverb "practice makes perfect."
Curly's remark, "I shoot an arrow into the air, where it lands I do not care: I get my arrows wholesale!" parodies
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include " Paul Revere's Ride", '' The Song of Hiawatha'', and ''Evangeline''. He was the first American to completely tran ...
's poem "The Arrow and the Song," which begins, "I shot an arrow into the air/It fell to earth, I knew not where..."
References
External links
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{{The Three Stooges
1942 films
The Three Stooges films
American black-and-white films
Films directed by Del Lord
1940s Western (genre) comedy films
Columbia Pictures short films
American slapstick comedy films
American Western (genre) comedy films
1942 comedy films
1940s English-language films
1940s American films
English-language Western (genre) comedy films