Soup to Nuts (1930)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Boring

A Masterpiece!

The only thing memorable about director Benjamin Stoloff's otherwise forgettable comedy "Soup to Nuts" is that it offered audiences their first glimpse of the Three Stooges. Unfortunately, this tepid laffer about a down-on-his-luck costume store owner who goes bankrupt provides the Stooges with only modest exposure. Wisecracking, know-it-all, Schmidt Costume Shop salesman Ted (vaudeville comic Ted Healy of "Bombshell") prefers to hang out with his low wattage pals at the local fire station. They are Shemp, Moe, and Larry who formed the Three Stooges. They don't get a chance to indulge in their slapstick as they would in their later shorts and feature films. Basically, they are fireman who cavort on their ladder fire truck. Cartoonist Rube Goldberg penned the plot for this absurd adventure. It appears that Otto Schmidt (Charles Winninger of "Ziegfeld Girl")lavishes too much time on idle projects, like self-tipping hat, a burglar alarm that involves several gadgets, and complicated device that sweetens coffee. He goes bankrupt and has to turn his costume shop over to creditors. Richard Carlson (Stanley Smith) takes over the store, while Otto takes a job as a waiter at Gus's restaurant. Under no circumstances does Otto want his niece Louise (Lucile Browne) to get wind of his misfortune. Naturally, Louise learns about it at about the same time that Richard lays eyes on her and knows that she is the gal for him. Predictably, Louise wants nothing to do with the dastardly Richard who spends the bulk of this 71-minute epic struggling to win her approval. "Soup to Nuts" contains a rather thin plot with a romantic subplot. Recommended only for die-hard Three Stooges fans because the humor here is creaky.

The best way to understand Soup to Nuts is not as a Three Stooges movie, but as a Charles Winninger movie that includes the embryonic Stooges in a secondary role. Winninger plays the proud but struggling owner of a costume shop that has gone into receivership. This is a variation of the old "farmer in danger of losing the farm" plot. He, of course, has an attractive niece whom the young credit manager falls for.But Winninger's portrayal stands out, particularly when discussing matters with his friend Gus, a struggling restaurateur (remember, this was made in 1930, during the Great Depression) and everyone was struggling).The Shemp-led (this is before Curly joined the group) Stooges are close to developing their identities, but aren't there yet. Larry has some of the best lines, particularly the "Elevator Dance", and the "Pick a number" routine. The fact that this movie was made pre-code shows up on a couple occasions. This was made during prohibition, and the use of alcohol could be seen as being on the same level as the use of pot in contemporary movies. Also there's Fred Sanborn whose character is obviously gay. Sanborn's presence is an eccentric one, but his excellent xylophone performance is one of the film's highlights.So if you want classic Stooges, get one of the many collections available. But if you want a pleasant look into early sound motion pictures Soup to Nuts is worth your while.

What we appear to have here are some vaudeville comedians trying to bring their acts to the screen assisted by a story from comic strip artist Rube Goldberg. It doesn't seem likely that any of them knew much about making movies no matter how good they may have been at making people laugh in their normal venues. The result is a mostly haphazard collection of lame gags with a few totally inane scenes thrown in for "plot" development. It isn't a total loss, however, because this fundamental weakness turns out also to be the film's greatest strength. Not knowing what they were doing, they manage to create a movie with a truly unusual and unique approach to film comedy. No matter how bad it may be, there are a few moments of hilarity delivered in a style you'll not see anywhere else.What really makes this worthwhile for most viewers, however, is it being the film debut of the 3 Stooges. Their skit near the end of the movie is basically a filmed vaudeville routine and is quite a bit different from the familiar act they eventually developed for their later shorts, but it's probably the closest we'll ever come to seeing what they originally looked like when performing on stage (and our only chance to see bizarre "fourth stooge" Fred Sanborn). No 3 Stooges fan should ever consider passing up the opportunity to see this.Let me also say that many of the other reviews here seem very unfair to Ted Healy, the Stooges original leader. From what I've read, the Stooges always thought very highly of his talents, but eventually got tired of his drunken binges and not being given the credit (or money) they deserved. In fact, it was after an early split with Healy that Shemp refused to return to work for him, thus requiring younger brother Curly to be brought in as a replacement (although much maligned by Stooge fans, Shemp does go on to be the only one of them with a successful film career independent of being a stooge). Healy, a big vaudeville star, seemed on his way to becoming a big film star before being killed in a bar fight during one of his drunken binges. Having never had the chance to see him in vaudeville, it hardly seems fair to judge him based on a few movies he made while still learning how to make the transition.

This was an unusual movie. That Fred Sanborn has got to be as strange a comedian as there ever was in a movie. It's really bizarre. The stooges are fireman and do their thing with Ted Healy batting them around. Probably wouldn't seem so bad if you did not know what they would do later.