''Pick a Peck of Plumbers'' is an American comedy short produced and 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 ...

. Released by Columbia Pictures on July 23, 1944, it stars

El Brendel Elmer Goodfellow "El" Brendel (March 25, 1890 – April 9, 1964) was an American vaudeville comedian turned movie star, best remembered for his dialect routine as a Swedish immigrant. His biggest role was as "Single-0" in the sci-fi musical ' ...

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 ...

, both of whom receive top-billing in the short.

Plot

Elmer (El Brendel) and Axel (Shemp Howard) are two vagrants who are on trial for wrecking a policeman's motorcycle. The judge (John Tyrell) fines them $100 or they go to jail for 100 days. The two men convince the judge to let them get a job to pay the fine, which he accepts. They end up getting a job as assistant plumbers, even though they know nothing about plumbing. The boys also find themselves in hot water when they unknowingly assault a customer in the shop, who turns out to be the judge. Their first assignment is to locate a ring that fell down in a sink at a mansion where a bridge club game is going on. They destroy the bathroom and the rest of the house until they finally retrieve the ring at the end.

Production notes

''Pick a Peck of Plumbers'' is a remake of 1934's ''Plumbing For Gold'' starring

George Sidney George Sidney (October 4, 1916May 5, 2002) was an American film director and producer who worked primarily at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. His work includes cult classics ''Bye Bye Birdie'' (1963) and ''Viva Las Vegas'' (1964). With an extensive backgro ...

and Charlie Murray. It was partially reworked with

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 ...

as '' A Plumbing We Will Go'' (1940) and ''

Vagabond Loafers ''Vagabond Loafers'' is a 1949 short subject directed by Edward Bernds starring American slapstick comedy team The Three Stooges ( Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Shemp Howard). It is the 118th entry in the series released by Columbia Pictures sta ...

'' (1949). It was remade by the Stooges again in 1956 as ''

Scheming Schemers ''Scheming Schemers'' is a 1956 short subject directed by Jules White starring American slapstick comedy team The Three Stooges (Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Shemp Howard). It is the 173rd entry in the series released by Columbia Pictures starrin ...

''. In 1944, the shorts department at Columbia paired Brendel with different comedians since they did not know what to do with him. Brendel and Howard did not really click together as a team. Brendel was paired with silent-screen comedian Harry Langdon, who had his own series of comedy shorts at Columbia since 1934, for some of the latter shorts until Langdon's death in 1945. After his death, Columbia decided not to renew Brendel's contract.

References

External links

*
''Pick a Peck of Plumbers'' at threestooges.net
American black-and-white films Films directed by Jules White Columbia Pictures short films American slapstick comedy films 1940s English-language films 1940s American films {{short-comedy-film-stub