''Dunked in the Deep'' is a 1949

short subject A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

directed by

Jules White Jules White (born Julius Weiss; hu, Weisz Gyula; 17 September 190030 April 1985) was a Hungarian-American film director and producer best known for his short-subject comedies starring The Three Stooges Early years White began working in mo ...

starring American

slapstick Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. Slapstick may involve both intentional violence and violence by mishap, often resulting from inept use of props such a ...

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

Shemp Howard Samuel Horwitz (March 11, 1895 – November 22, 1955), known professionally as Shemp Howard, was an American actor and comedian. He was called "Shemp" because "Sam" came out that way in his mother's thick Lithuanian Yiddish, Litvak accent. He is ...

). It is the 119th 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 Stooges are tricked into becoming stowaways by their neighbor Mr. Borscht (

Gene Roth Eugene Oliver Edgar Stutenroth (January 8, 1903 – July 19, 1976), known profesionally as Gene Roth, was an American film actor and film manager. Early years Roth was born in Redfield, South Dakota. He was the son of a German father and ...

), a spy for a fictitious

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

-like country. Stranded on a freighter on the high seas, and sustained by eating salami, they discover that Borscht has concealed stolen

microfilm Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either photographic film, films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the origin ...

in watermelons. After a wild chase, the boys overtake Borscht and recover the microfilm.

Cast

as Moe and Voice on Radio *

as Larry *

as Shemp *

as Borscht

Production notes

''Dunked in the Deep'' was reworked in 1956 as ''

Commotion on the Ocean ''Commotion on the Ocean'' is a 1956 short subject directed by Jules White starring American slapstick comedy team the Three Stooges (Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Shemp Howard in his final starring role). It is the 174th entry in the series release ...

'' (Shemp's final film with the team at columbia(although filmed after his death), using ample

stock footage Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures, and file footage is film or video footage that can be used again in other films. Stock footage is beneficial to filmmakers as it saves shooting new material. A single piece of stock ...

. The voice heard on the radio broadcast is Moe;

accidentally cut his hand on the lock when he rushes to the door in an effort to open it. Hiding microfilm in watermelons is an allusion to an actual event from the previous year. In 1948, ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' managing editor

Whittaker Chambers Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938), ...

, a former Communist spy-turned government informer, accused

Alger Hiss Alger Hiss (November 11, 1904 – November 15, 1996) was an American government official accused in 1948 of having spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Statutes of limitations had expired for espionage, but he was convicted of perjury in con ...

of being a member of the

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...

and a spy for the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. In presenting evidence against Hiss, Chambers produced the "

Pumpkin Papers The Pumpkin Papers are a set of typewritten, handwritten, and microfilmed documents, stolen from the US federal government (thus information leaks) by members of the Ware Group and other Soviet spy networks in Washington, DC, during 1937-1938, wi ...

": five rolls of microfilm of

State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...

documents, which Chambers had concealed in a hollowed-out pumpkin on his

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

farm. ''Dunked in the Deep'' was filmed March 29-April 1, 1949 and was actually the 126th Stooge short filmed even though it was released as the 119th. The first seven Stooge shorts released the following year in 1950 had already been completed before ''Dunked in the Deep'' began production.

References

External links

* * 1949 films The Three Stooges films American black-and-white films Films directed by Jules White 1949 comedy films Columbia Pictures short films American comedy short films 1940s English-language films 1940s American films {{short-comedy-film-stub