An Ache in Every Stake

Infobox Film
name = An Ache in Every Stake


caption =
director = Del Lord
writer = Lloyd French
starring = Moe Howard
Larry Fine
Curly Howard
Vernon Dent
Bud Jamison
Gino Corrado
Bess Flowers
Blanche Payson
Symona Boniface
cinematography = Philip Tannura |
editing = Burton Kramer
producer = Del Lord
Hugh McCollum
distributor = Columbia Pictures
released = flagicon|US August 22, 1941
runtime = 18' 05"
country = USA
language = English
amg_id = 1:146266
imdb_id = 0033312
preceded_by = "I'll Never Heil Again"
followed_by = "In the Sweet Pie and Pie"

"An Ache in Every Stake" is the 57th short subject starring American slapstick comedy team the Three Stooges. The trio made a total of 190 shorts for Columbia Pictures between 1934 and 1959.

Plot

The Stooges are icemen making a delivery at a house atop a long, high staircase — so high that every time they go up, the ice melts to a cube. When their antics cause the servants at their customer's house to quit, the Stooges are hired to replace them and prepare dinner for her husband's birthday party. Unknown to them, the man she refers to is Mr. Lawrence (Vernon Dent), whose cakes they had previously wrecked earlier in the day. When the birthday cake they prepared is finished, it was accidentally pierced, and it deflates in the process. The cake is "re-inflated" using town gas through the gas stove's connection.

During the party, the Stooges sing a "Happy Birthday" song to the tune of "London Bridge is Falling Down"; when Mr. Lawrence blows the out candles, the gas-filled cake explodes. Mr. Lawrence angrily realizes who the new ‘help’ are, and the Stooges are forced to leave in a hurry.

Notes

* Contrary to popular belief, the long staircase in this short is not the same one used in Laurel and Hardy’s "The Music Box". The stairs (147 steps in length) are about two miles northeast, between 2257 and 2258 Fair Oak View Terrace in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles.
* Curly's turkey-stuffing scene was later used in the Shemp solo short "A Peach of a Pair" and later performed again by Shemp in the short "Listen, Judge".
*A colorized version of this film was released in 2004. It was part of the DVD collection entitled " [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0002A2WG8/ Stooged & Confoosed] "

Further reading

*"Moe Howard and the Three Stooges"; by Moe Howard [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0806507233] , (Citadel Press, 1977).
*"The Complete Three Stooges: The Official Filmography and Three Stooges Companion"; by Jon Solomon [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0971186804] , (Comedy III Productions, Inc., 2002).
*"The Three Stooges Scrapbook"; by Jeff Lenburg, Joan Howard Maurer, Greg Lenburg [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0806509465] (Citadel Press, 1994).
*"The Three Stooges: An Illustrated History, From Amalgamated Morons to American Icons"; by Michael Fleming [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0767905563] (Broadway Publishing, 2002).
*"One Fine Stooge: A Frizzy Life in Pictures"; by Steve Cox and Jim Terry [http://www.amazon.com/dp/1581823630] , (Cumberland House Publishing, 2006).