Uncivil War Birds

We are back in the Civil War days and the boys, as they usually did, play Confederates and you hear the phrases like "You all," "I reckon," "shore 'nuff," etc., more than you want to hear, at least at the beginning.

The Civil War parts of this "adventure,",which make up most of the story, have an odd twist. The boys apparently lived in a border state when some joined the Union, some joined the Confederacy. We know this because two minutes after the boys enlist, Moe and Larry are in blue and Curly is in gray. (Odd that could happen in the same town, but, hey, it's a movie.) Nonetheless, the boys realize this and from then on, are all on the same page.

There are a few things in this movie you would never see or hear today, in a PC or family film of this type: 1 - the boys dress up as slaves and sing "Dixie;" 2 - Moe says to the guys, "Brother, y'all ejaculated a mouthful." I thought I had heard wrong but played it back with English subtitles and, lo and behold, that's what he said. Well, there are a lot of thing in this episode that have far different meanings today.

The Stooges' version of Dixie had a northern twist which produced a few laughs, such as "way down yonder in New York City" and stanzas about the "cotton in Brooklyn."

Mostly this one just makes a small Union army group look really stupid while the Stooges keep fooling them with different uniforms and disguises. In all, it's a fair episode, ranking about in the middle of all their comedy short films.