Vagabond Loafers

Infobox Film
name = Vagabond Loafers


caption =
director = Edward Bernds
writer = Elwood Ullman
starring = Moe Howard
Larry Fine
Shemp Howard
Emil Sitka
Symona Boniface
Kenneth MacDonald
Christine McIntyre
Dudley Dickerson
cinematography = Vincent J. Farrar |
editing = Henry DeMond
producer = Hugh McCollum
distributor = Columbia Pictures
released = flagicon|US October 6, 1949
runtime = 15' 51"
country = USA
language = English
preceded_by = "Malice in the Palace"
followed_by = "Dunked in the Deep"
amg_id = 1:149190
imdb_id = 0042012

"Vagabond Loafers" is the 118th 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 inept plumbers at Day and Nite Plumbers. Moe is busy reading "How to Be a Plumber" when the phone rings with a request to fix a leaky faucet at the home of the wealthy Norfleets (Emil Sitka and Symona Boniface). The leak happens to spring up while the Norfleets are throwing a dinner party to celebrate the acquisition of a $50,000 Van Brocklin painting.

Moe struggles with the pipes in the basement while Shemp manages to trap himself inside a maze of pipes in the bathroom. Larry is assigned to finding the water cutoff and proceeds to dig up most of the the lawn in an attempt to turn off the water. Shemp later surmises that the pipes fail to work properly because they are "clogged up with wires." Shemp and Moe proceed to remove the electrical system from the pipes and connect a water pipe to the freshly available pipe. The cook (Dudley Dickerson), who is in the kitchen trying to prepare an extravagant meal for the Norfleets, watches in bewilderment as the stove and chandelier gush water. "This house is sho' gone crazy!"

As the Norfleet's house transforms into Niagara Falls, two party guests named Mr. and Mrs. Allen (Kenneth MacDonald and Christine McIntyre) manage to swipe the prized Van Brocklin painting. The Stooges manage, however, to catch onto the Allen's scheme and retrieve the painting. When the grateful Norfleets offer the Stooges a handsome reward, Shemp says, "We don't want no reward, lady. It'll put us in a higher tax bracket!"

Notes

*"Vagabond Loafers" is a reworking of 1940's "A Plumbing We Will Go", and would itself be remade in 1956 as "Scheming Schemers".
* The film marked the final appearances of two prolific Stooge supporting actors: Symona Boniface and Dudley Dickerson. Their faces would be seen in several more Stooge films, however, when footage feautring the actors was recycled for future productions.

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).