[Inspector Abberline]

The Fixer Uppers (1935)

This seasonal offering see's the boys selling Christmas cards door to door,unfortunately for them there cards have the worst rhymes ever, "A merry Christmas, husband/ Happy New Year's nigh!/ I wish you Easter greetings/ Hooray for the Fourth of July!" .Eventually they come across the rather lovely Mae Busch,who is doing some rather unconvincing crying,due to the fact she feels her husband Charles Middleton as Pierre Gustave,no longer loves her.When the boys find out what is upsetting Mae,Stan has the rather confabulated plan of making her husband jealous by him witnessing her kiss another man,this is one of those classic Stan plan's that never sound the same twice when Ollie asks him to repeat it and the more he explains it the more confusing the plan gets.It all gets a bit X-rated when Mae Busch demonstrates to the duo how to give a passionate kiss,with the resulting kiss making Stan faint,in retaliation he plants a kiss on Mae with the result she faints this time.Where upon Stan tells Ollie "Well she started it!". The plot is not exactly sophisticated and it all goes a bit farcical with all the stuff about the husband catching his wife in a tryst.It also has a bizarre twist of fate,where the pair get drunk after taunting the husband on the phone,only for them to be taken back to Mae's house and dumped in her bed by the police when there blind drunk,and coming to in Mae bedroom,much to the husbands surprise and Ollie.There seems to be a lot of criticism with the older two reel shorts,with people feeling that by this time they had exhausted the format (which is crazy considering the Three Stooges made nearly 190 short films in the career) but I feel that The Fixer Uppers is much maligned but still has some merit and a worthwhile watch.