Flagpole Jitters

Infobox Film
name = Flagpole Jitters


caption =
director = Jules White
writer = Felix Adler
Jack White
starring = Moe Howard
Larry Fine
Shemp Howard
Barbara Bartay
Frank Sully
Beverly Thomas
Bonnie Menjum
Mary Ainslee
David Bond
Vernon Dent
cinematography = Irving Lippman |
editing = Harold White
producer = Jules White
distributor = Columbia Pictures
released = flagicon|US April 5, 1956
runtime = 15' 15"
country = USA
language = English
amg_id = 1:149215
imdb_id = 0049214
preceded_by = "Creeps"
followed_by = "For Crimin' Out Loud"

"Flagpole Jitters" is the 169th 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 three paperhangers who also look after invalid Mary, who is confined to a wheelchair. While working, they are taken by one poster that advertises a great hypnotist, Svengarlic ("He'll steal your breath away!" the poster announces). The Stooges want the hypnotist to work his magic on Mary so that she can walk again, but Svengarlic is more interested in winning an audience to create a diversion by hypnotizing the Stooges. While the audience watches the Stooges dance on an overhead flagpole, Svengarlic's henchmen are in the process of robbing a bank. But a distracted bicyclist knocks Svengarlic over and the Stooges are abruptly awakened. They immediately panic when they see where they are, then the flagpole breaks, sending them flying through the open window of the bank being robbed, thwarting the theft.

Notes

* The Stooges make an amusing reference to Sing Sing Correctional Facility, in which Shemp believes he has hypnotized Moe into thinking he is locked up in the infamous prison.
* The character name Svengarlic is a parody of Svengali, the name of a fictional character in George du Maurier's 1894 novel "Trilby".
*"Flagpole Jitters" is a reworking of 1949's "Hokus Pokus" using ample stock footage from the original. In particular, the two pictures have very different endings: Mary is actually paraplegic here, whereas in the original she was a fraud. Here, Svengarlic is the fraud.

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).