Oily To Rise

The stooges are tramps looking for handouts. Although the boys are down and out, Curly seems to get everything he wishes for. After some trouble with a farmer, the boys come across an abandoned car, one of Curly's wishes. The car actually belongs to some con men who have just gypped the widow Jenkins out of her land. The boys winds up at the Mrs. Jenkins' house just in time for a free meal. To repay Mrs. Jenkins the boys try to fix her well and instead unleash an oil geyser. Learning that Mrs. Jenkins has been swindled, the boys go to retrieve the deed before it can be recorded. They find the bad guys and after a wild fight recover the deed. The boys return the deed to Mrs. Jenkins and marry her daughters; April, May and June.—Mitch Shapiro <mshapiro@a.crl.com> Plot summary

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User reviews8Review FEATURED REVIEW Very Funny Short Oily to Bed, oily to Rise (1939) *** (out of 4)

Above, from the movie, Oily To Bed, Oily To Rise,

I used this little Three Stooges clip, below, in my presentations around the country about the history of oil well firefighting and blowout control. I talked about my colleagues at Boots and Coots, Inc. getting burned to death on a well fire in 1995 in Syria, on a job that I was suppose to go on myself but couldn't, and occassionally I could see in the audience it was troubling to them to hear that story. I could even get a little emotional about it. It was a tribute to my friends, but also a reminder as to how dangerous the profession was.

So, I would always follow it up quickly with this clip, with a perfect lead-in about how much well control work had evolved to 1939 and about how a new blowout control company came onto the scene in 1939 to take over some of the work for Myron Kinley. It lightened the mood and we carried on with the rest of the presentation.

I loved evening presentations because the more the audience would drink, the more they would buy me one, or four, and the better the stories got for both of us.

I gave an evening presentation like this in Bismarck once; 300 people and lots of wine. When I finished I ran off to the dunny and forgot to turn my wireless mic off clipped to my tie. Men in the bathroom were asking me questions, laughing and carrying on and from the overhead speakers in the ballroom everybody could hear us, including all the peeing and ensuing flushing of urinals. It was embarrassing.

Moe actually got hurt doing this little film, got oily, inky water in his eye. This same film was redone in 1958 and was called, Oils Well That Ends Well and had the same clip in it only with Joe, instead of Moe. I always liked Moe the best.

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