Flagpole Jitters (1956) User Reviews (5)

standard Stooges

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 28 June 2021]

Larry, Moe, and Shemp live together and care for their wheelchair-bound neighbor Mary. They work at a theater where the Great hypnotist Svengarlic is secretly the leader of a robbery gang. He turns the guys into flagpole performers on the side of a building as distraction to a bank heist.

The gags feel a fraction slow for some reason. It's still Stooges fun. The Boston joke is subversively the funniest bit. There is some recycling like other Stooges shorts. It's all very standard as far as the boys go.

A decent remake

[slymusic · 26 January 2006]

"Flagpole Jitters" is a remake, with stock footage, of "Hokus Pokus" (1949), both Three Stooges shorts directed by Jules White. This is Shemp's penultimate short with the Stooges before his sudden death in 1955, and he definitely looks tired in the new footage for this film, as if he just ran out of steam. And yet, this remake is actually pretty good, with a couple of plot changes; in the original, the Stooges' "crippled" neighbor Mary (Mary Ainslee) has crooked intentions and the hypnotist Svengarlic (David Bond) does not, and in "Flagpole Jitters," the reverse is true.

Highlights: Svengarlic gets knocked unconscious as he hypnotizes Moe, Larry, and Shemp on the flagpole (stock footage). When Moe steps out of the Stooges' janitorial closet to confront the man who slammed the door on them, the difference between the two men's heights is astonishing (new footage). The table with the trick legs becomes a nuisance for Shemp (stock footage). And the boys cannot hold back the horseplay when pasting up a poster (stock footage).

Although a minor entry in the Stooge catalog of films, "Flagpole Jitters" is still fairly good for a remake. My recommendation would be to not overlook this short.

Good Three Stooges short!

[Movie Nuttball · 10/10 · 7 August 2004]

The Three Stooges has always been some of the many actors that I have loved. I love just about every one of the shorts that they have made. I love all six of the Stooges (Curly, Shemp, Moe, Larry, Joe, and Curly Joe)! All of the shorts are hilarious and also star many other great actors and actresses which a lot of them was in many of the shorts! In My opinion The Three Stooges is some of the greatest actors ever and is the all time funniest comedy team!

This is a fair Three Stooges short with Shemp. The beautiful Mary Ainslee, David Bond, Vernon Dent, Jimmie Lloyd, and Ned Glass Richard Alexander, Barbara Bartay, Don C. Harvey, Frank Sully, and Beverly Thomas are in this one. The scenes when the Stooges are getting out of bed and ready is funny. Bond is good as the hypnotist, The Great Svengarlic. There is another Three Stooges short similar like this one called Hokus Pokus and its just as good as this one. Three Stooges fans, check this one out!

Why remake something that's only a couple of years old?

[maxcellus46 · 3/10 · 10 December 2005]

Why, for the life of me, were all these remakes and half-remakes being done of shorts that were essentially only a few years old? Did Jules White feel the need to win a contest that says the director of the most shorts wins something? I mean, he would take something that was done five years earlier and directed by someone else, who was much more capable by the way, and then stick his name on as "directed by". The only thing that I can see he was put in charge of is literally sabotaging the Stooges careers. "It's Sabatoogee I'm tellin ya'!" This one is certainly no exception. It's not even a remake considering that 99% of the footage is used from the original. Just some added on non-related stuff tacked on so he can be honestly listed as the "director"? I don't get it. And no one else with eyes does either...except maybe "movie nutball". He apparently likes everything, no matter how bad it is.

Terrible remake

[holme-1 · 17 August 2001]

This is a terrible remake of "Hokus Pokus". Some of the new footage is pointless, and to add on to that, Shemp looks quite ill in the new footage and hardly ever speaks in the new footage. The only funny scene in the new footage is the "who slammed the door" bit. The only thing that saves this one is consistency of new footage.

Grade: D-