Gents Without Cents

Infobox Film
name = Gents Without Cents


caption =
director = Jules White
writer = Felix Adler
starring = Moe Howard
Larry Fine
Curly Howard
Lindsay Bourquin
Laverne Thompson
Betty Phares
Judy Malcolm
John Tyrrell
cinematography = Benjamin H. Kline |
editing = Charles Hochberg
producer = Jules White
distributor = Columbia Pictures
released = flagicon|US September 22, 1944
runtime = 18' 58"
country = USA
language = English
amg_id = 1:150556
imdb_id = 0036860
preceded_by = "Idle Roomers"
followed_by = "No Dough Boys"

"Gents Without Cents" is the 81st 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

In this short, easily one of the finest in the Three Stooges' canon of shorts, the Stooges are small time song-and-dance performers who are having trouble rehearsing due to loud tapping that is going on one story above them. When they go to give the roudies a piece of their mind, three lovely ladies named Flo (Lindsay Bourquin), Mary (Laverne Thompson) and Shirley (Betty Phares) come to the door. It turns out the girls are performing their tap dance routine.

The six become friends, with the ladies accompanying the boys when they perform at the Noazark Shipbuilding Company to entertain the defense workers. The Stooges slay the audience with their hilarious "Niagara Falls" routine ("slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch..."). When the boys receive word that the headliners (The Castor and Earl Review) have to bail, the Stooges and the girls offer to take their place. The three ladies perform some breathtaking acrobatics, while the Stooges perform "At the Front." The Stooges' agent, Manny Weeks (John Tyrrell), is so enthralled with the boys' performance that he offers to send the trio to Broadway.

The Stooges nearly leave their ladies, but end up getting married first with a honeymoon planned for — where else? — Niagara Falls.

Notes

*The Stooges filmed the "Niagara Falls" routine in 1943 for the feature film "Good Luck, Mr. Yates", but the scene was cut at the last minute. Instead of wasting the footage, Columbia built "Gents Without Cents" around it.cite book
last = Solomon
first = Jon
authorlink = Jon Solomon
coauthors =
title = "The Complete Three Stooges: The Official Filmography and Three Stooges Companion"
publisher = Comedy III Productions, Inc
date = 2002
location =
pages = 250, 251
url = http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Three-Stooges-Filmography-Companion/dp/0971186804/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201570359&sr=1-1
doi =
id =
isbn = 0971186804]
*"Gents Without Cents" is the first Stooge film to employ a syncopated, jazzy version of "Three Blind Mice" as the Stooges' theme song. The new version is now is the key of F, while the key of G was previously utilized. This syncopated version would be used regularly (though briefly) after the next film, "No Dough Boys".
*The title is a play on "without sense."

External links

* [http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/slowly.html "Slowly I Turned": A Piece of America's Pop Culture] - credits Joey Faye (1909-1997) as originator

ee also

* Burlesque

References

Further reading

*"Moe Howard and the Three Stooges"; by Moe Howard [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0806507233] , (Citadel Press, 1977).
*"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).