THE THREE STOOGES [3 episodes] ~ Cash and Carry (1937) / No Census, No Feeling (1940) / Some More of Samoa (1941) [VHS]
"Cash and Carry" (1937) is the 24th Columbia short for the Three Stooges  and has a most unusual (for them) beginning and end. Finding that a crippled  orphan and his sister have taken over their shack at the city dump, the trio  promises to raise the young people's cache of coins to the $500 needed for a leg  operation. Of course, they run into swindlers, who sell them a treasure map to a  house that just happens to be next to a Federal Treasury Deposit. After the  expected number of slams with sledgehammers, they are caught in the act. In the  closing shot, however, they are pardoned by President Roosevelt, who also  promises the boy his operation. Overdone sentimentality at start and end, but  good stooging in the middle."No Census, No Feeling" (1940, #50) badly needs a plot. Forced to take a job as  census takers, they wind up interviewing each other, then playing bridge for a  Margaret Dumont-type socialite. After an overly long sequence concerning the  effects of alum in the punch, they try to continue their census taking on a  football field. Curly has a great comic reaction to the alum, but this film is  too disjointed to please.The plot of "Some More of Samoa" (1941, #59) is only slightly more unified.  Having destroyed a rare tree, the Stooges are hired by its owner to find a  replacement on the Isle of Rhum Boogie. Special treats abound as Curly backs  into a vitamin syringe and grows like Alice in Wonderland, among other  adventures. As always, the bald brother gets all the best situations, and the  lack of a real plot seems almost a quibble.--Frank Behrens