Half Shot Shooters

Infobox Film
name = Half Shot Shooters


caption =
director = Preston Black
writer = Clyde Bruckman
starring = Moe Howard
Larry Fine
Curly Howard
Stanley Blystone
Vernon Dent
Edward LeSaint
Harry Semels
Heinie Conklin
cinematography = Benjamin H. Kline |
editing = Charles Hochberg
producer = Jules White
distributor = Columbia Pictures
released = flagicon|US April 30, 1936
runtime = 18' 35"
country = USA
language = English
amg_id = 1:144299
imdb_id = 0027714
preceded_by = "Movie Maniacs"
followed_by = "Disorder in the Court"

"Half Shot Shooters" is the 14th 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

1918 - After getting medals for "Wounds in action" {actually being kicked by their Sgt after falling asleep}, the Stooges are discharged from the army after World War I, and they promptly administer some revenge to their cruel sergeant, Sgt. MacGillicuddy (Stanley Blystone).

1935 - The Stooges are traveling the streets hungry, when they are tricked into signing up for the army again. Naturally, MacGillicuddy is their new superior.

The Stooges are then assigned to man a coast artillery gun site, and begin practicing their "skills". They first hit a smokestack, then a house, next a bridge, and lastly, a battleship, which happens to be the admiral's flagship. The officers and Sgt. MacGillicuddy go to the site to investigate, and the Stooges point fingers at each other as to who is to blame for the hitting. Then the sergeant asks them to line up on one side and stay there for a photo shoot. The Stooges agree, and prepare to pose just as Sgt. MacGillicuddy swings the gun at them.

Notes

*This is the first Stooges short to feature Vernon Dent, who appeared in more Stooge shorts than any other supporting actor.
*The title is a pun on "Half Shot at Sunrise", an RKO Radio Pictures movie with Wheeler & Woolsey.
*This is the last Stooge short in which the old Columbia Pictures "torch lady" appears.

Further reading

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