Three Little Beers

Nothing has a more calming effect than playing on a golf course swinging one's troubles away. That is until The Three Stooges arrive. In their 11th Columbia Pictures short, the trio wreck havoc on a private country club's ground in November 1935's "Three Little Beers." The movie, besides a brief office introduction inside the brewery's office, was filmed exclusively outside, making this the Stooges' most number of exterior location shots in all of their films.

Moe, Larry and Curly had just been hired as beer keg deliverymen when Moe spots a leaflet advertising a golf tournament at the local country club they're assigned for delivery. He thinks they can easily win the $100 prize. The three set out to show their skills on the golf course during the tournament held exclusively for members of the press. Through the process of golfing, Curly chops down a tree to retrieve his club and ball, Moe scours the fairway with divots in his attempts to hit a golf ball, and Larry destroys a putting green pulling on a stubborn root.

Filming took place at Los Angeles' Rancho Park Golf Course on Pico Boulevard across from the 20th Century Fox studios. Once the Stooges were chased out of the golf club they proceeded to deliver the beer kegs. Two barrels fell out of the truck on top of a hill on Scott Avenue in L. A.. While chasing the two barrels down the sloping street, the Stooges soon realized the rest of the barrels have spilled out of the truck, sending a cascade of them tumbling down onto the intersection of busy Echo Park Avenue. The Stooges' sequence is similar to Buster Keaton's barrel scene in his 1933 "What-No Beer!" "Three Little Beers" was producer Julius White's first handling of a Three Stooges short. The Hungarian-born Julius Weiss was introduced to motion pictures as a youngster in the 1910s, and was hired in 1930 by MGM to co-direct its canine series 'Dogville Comedies' with his friend Zion Myers. Just as Hal Roach Studios and Universal Pictures were winding down their short subject divisions, White, 33, was contracted by Columbia Pictures in 1933 to head its short productions. White, known for his quick turnarounds reminiscent of the silent comedy era, oversaw along with Hugh McCollum the studio's more than 500 short films for over 25 years until the late 1950s. Just about forty per-cent of White's work involved The Three Stooges.