Boobs in Arms

Boobs in Arms
Directed by	Jules White
Produced by	Jules White
Written by	Felix Adler
Starring	Moe Howard Larry Fine Curly Howard Richard Fiske Evelyn Young Johnny Kascier Cy Schindell Eddie Laughton
Cinematography	John Stumar
Editing by	Mel Thorsen
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	December 27, 1940 (1940-12-27)
Running time	17' 55"
Country	United States
Language	English

Boobs in Arms is the 52nd 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 short fits neatly into three parts. In the beginning the Stooges are street peddler greeting card salesmen who anger a man on the street after an accidental altercation. They are then approached by a woman (Evelyn Young) with a request to help her make her husband (Richard Fiske) jealous. The Stooges defend themselves against the irate husband with their usual combatives and flee from the husband shouting his threats. In hiding from him, they line up on a queue that takes them to a recruitment office by mistake and end up joining the army.

The Stooges push drill sergeant Richard Fiske over the limit in Boobs in Arms.

The second part of the short has them meeting their Drill instructor-sergeant Hugh Dare aka the irate husband/man on the street. The Stooges do the traditional military drill comic routines including bayonet practice with gusto and irritate the sergeant even more.

The last part of the short has the Stooges going to war against a fictional country and becoming casualties of a laughing gas shell that explodes on them, rather than the enemy, due to their pointing the cannon upward. They and their sergeant are captured by an anonymous enemy in European type uniforms who appear to speak pig latin. Hopped up by the gas, the Stooges gleefully use their violence in a wild free for all fight against their captors — including an accidental sword thrust to the rear of the sergeant and his retaliatory punch to the enemy captain that makes him fall on the pointed end of his pickelhaube helmet.

The Stooges knock out everyone, including all the enemy soldiers and their sergeant. After emerging victorious, several guns fire at them, with shells whizzing past, the Stooges always ducking in laughter or leaning back giggling, each time missing another shell. Finally, the last shot's shell passes between their legs and takes them into the clouds.

Hollywood and the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940

The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 was passed by the United States Congress on September 16, 1940, becoming the first peacetime conscription in United States history. Hollywood reflected the interest of the American public in Conscription in the United States by having nearly every film studio bring out a military film comedy in 1941 with their resident comedian(s).

Universal Pictures' Abbott and Costello came out with the first feature film on the subject Buck Privates and followed it with the team In the Navy (film) and in the United States Army Air Corps to Keep 'Em Flying. Paramount Pictures' Bob Hope was Caught in the Draft, Warner Bros. was Phil Silvers and Jimmy Durante You're in the Army Now, Columbia Pictures put Fred Astaire in the army declaring You'll Never Get Rich, Hal Roach gave his new comedy team of William Tracy and Joe Sawyer Tanks a Million and 20th Century Fox had the former Hal Roach team of Laurel & Hardy going Great Guns.

The minor studios such as Republic Pictures provided Bob Crosby and Eddie Foy Jr. as Rookies on Parade and Monogram Pictures enlisted Nat Pendleton as Top Sergeant Mulligan.

However, the first comedians to hit the screen in an army comedy were the Stooges with Boobs in Arms. Columbia Pictures placed the Stooges in an unnamed army with military uniforms consisting of Zorro hats and tan uniforms with sergeant chevrons worn upside down to the American way; they are also armed with Civil War type muskets instead of modern rifles. Perhaps these uniforms deliberately do not resemble those of the U.S. Army because the finale takes place in a war.

Ironically Richard Fiske, the actor who played the sergeant, was drafted into the U.S. Army and was killed in France in World War II.

Notes

• The drill sergeant training segment was reused in the 1943 short Dizzy Pilots.
• The title is a parody of the 1939 MGM film Babes in Arms based on the Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers musical. The working title was All This and Bullets Too, a parody in itself of the title of the Warner Bros. film All This and Heaven Too.
• The closing gag of a person riding a bombshell through the air would be recreated by Slim Pickens in 1964's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
• The gag of dopes who accidentally end up enlisting in the US Army had been used previously in Half Shot Shooters.
• Curly's print ad for "O'Brien's Restaurant" has dessert misspelled as "desert".

External links

• Boobs in Arms at the Internet Movie Database
• Boobs in Arms at AllRovi
• Boobs in Arms at threestooges.net