BEDLAM IN PARADISE (1955)
Short
Article 2658 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-22-2008
Posting Date: 11-22-2008
Directed by Jules White
Featuring Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Shemp Howard
Country: USA

Shemp dies when he swallows a thermometer. In order to keep from going to hell, he has to come back as an unseen ghost and reform Moe and Larry.

You won’t know how tempted I was to pull up my write-up of HEAVENLY DAZE and recycle it for this one; after all, this short amounts to a recycling of that one, even to the point that it borrows some of the original footage. Oh, there’s a few changes; the devil is now a further adversary to Shemp in his mission to reform the other Stooges, and Sylvia Lewis has a great part as a devilish woman who tries to tempt Shemp from his appointed task. At any rate, it’s just nice to see a Shemp Stooge short as a follow-up to a Joe Besser Stooge short; I’m afraid Besser was a poor follow-up to Shemp, much less Curly. At any rate, this is a solid (if very derivative) Three Stooges short.