''Rockin' thru the Rockies'' is a 1940 short subject directed by Jules White 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 45th 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 guides (circa late 1800s), who are helping a trio christened "Nell's Belles" travel across the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, the location of their next performance. While preparing some corned beef, a group of Native Americans urges them to get off their land as soon as possible. Since Curly accidentally scared off the horses earlier, the group is stuck there for the night. During the night, Moe and Larry angrily tell Curly to sleep by himself because he is barking like a dog in his sleep. Unfortunately, snow falls while they sleep. They awake to discover a bear has devoured their food supply, so the three hapless guides try unsuccessfully to catch some fish in a nearby frozen lake. The fishing expedition is interrupted by Nell (

Kathryn Sheldon Kathryn Sheldon (September 22, 1879December 25, 1975) was an American film actress who appeared in over 100 films between 1916 and 1956. Modern viewers will recognize Sheldon as the domineering Nell in The Three Stooges' 1940 short film '' Rock ...

), who discovers the Belles —

Lorna Gray Virginia Pound (July 26, 1917 – April 30, 2017), known professionally as Lorna Gray and (after 1945) Adrian Booth, was an American film actress known for her comic roles, and later as a villainess. She is best known for her roles in Columb ...

Dorothy Appleby Dorothy Appleby (January 6, 1906 – August 9, 1990) was an American film actress. She appeared in over 50 films between 1931 and 1943. Career Appleby gained early acting experience as an understudy and a chorus member in plays in New Yor ...

and Linda Winters — have been abducted by that same tribe. The Belles manage to escape, and the troupe leaves the Native American land quickly.

Production notes

''Rockin' thru the Rockies'' was filmed on November 7–11, 1939.''Rockin' Thru the Rockies'' at threestooges.net
/ref> The film title is often mistaken for the 1945 feature film ''

Rockin' in the Rockies ''Rockin' in the Rockies'' is a 1945 American musical western feature film starring the Three Stooges (not to be confused with their 1940 short subject '' Rockin' thru the Rockies''). The picture was one of the Stooges' few feature-length film ...

'' starring the Stooges. After the snow collapses the tent-like structure from the set of "

Uncle Tom's Cabin ''Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly'' is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U ...

" (in which the troupe performs in a traveling show), Curly falls through a curtain, lands on the girls in bed, and says, "The walls of Jericho collapsed." This is a reference to a scene in Columbia's ''

It Happened One Night ''It Happened One Night'' is a 1934 pre-Code American romantic comedy film with elements of screwball comedy directed and co-produced by Frank Capra, in collaboration with Harry Cohn, in which a pampered socialite ( Claudette Colbert) tr ...

'', where the flimsy barricade set up between

Claudette Colbert Claudette Colbert ( ; born Émilie Claudette Chauchoin; September 13, 1903July 30, 1996) was an American actress. Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the late 1920s and progressed to films with the advent of talking pictures ...

and

Clark Gable William Clark Gable (February 1, 1901November 16, 1960) was an American film actor, often referred to as "The King of Hollywood". He had roles in more than 60 motion pictures in multiple genres during a career that lasted 37 years, three decades ...

in a motor lodge was called the "walls of Jericho." The name of the troupe, "Nell's Belles," is a play on the old expression "Hell's Bells," which of course would not have been permitted by the Production Code. In this short Curly also briefly chants, "Give 'em the axe, give 'em the axe; right in the neck, right in the neck" which is a reference both to the

Stanford Axe The Stanford Axe is a trophy awarded to the winner of the annual Big Game, a college football match-up between the University of California Golden Bears and the Stanford University Cardinal. The trophy consists of an axe-head mounted on a larg ...

as well as the chant traditionally shouted by Stanford during the Big Game, which was popular in

southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban a ...

during the early part of the 20th century. The conclusion of this film is reminiscent of Early American folklore as the Stooges leave Indian territory ''a la''

Windwagon Smith Windwagon Smith is an American tall tale about a sea captain who traveled in a Conestoga wagon, fitted with a sail, across the Kansas prairie. The tale was the subject of a 1961 animated Walt Disney Pictures film, ''The Saga of Windwagon Smith''. ...

References

External links

* *
''Rockin' Thru the Rockies'' at threestooges.net
{{The Three Stooges 1940 films The Three Stooges films American black-and-white films Films directed by Jules White 1940 comedy films Columbia Pictures short films American slapstick comedy films 1940s English-language films 1940s American films