Dizzy Pilots (1943)

User Rating:

7.3/10   

Director:

Jules White

Writer:

Clyde Bruckman (story)

Release Date:

24 September 1943 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Short

Plot:

The stooges are the Wrong brothers, three inventors trying to finish building an airplane they can sell to the army and thereby avoid the draft...

Plot Keywords:

The Three Stooges | Reference To The Wright Brothers | Slapstick

Cast

Curly Howard	...	Curly Wrong (as Curly)
Larry Fine	...	Larry Wrong (as Larry)
Moe Howard	...	Moe Wrong (as Moe)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Richard Fiske	...	The Sergeant (archive footage)
Charles Dorety	...	(uncredited)
Judy Malcolm	...	Girl in Hangar (uncredited)
Harry Semels	...	Sky Aircraft Co. Representative (uncredited)
Al Thompson	...	Sky Aircraft Co. Representative (uncredited)
Sethma Williams	...	Girl in Hangar (uncredited)

Directed by
Jules White

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Clyde Bruckman		story and screenplay

Produced by
Jules White	....	producer

Cinematography by
Benjamin H. Kline		(as Benjamin Kline)

Film Editing by
Charles Hochberg

Art Direction by
Victor Greene

Other crew
John Stumar	....	archive footage (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Columbia Pictures Corporation

Distributors

• Columbia Pictures (1943) (USA) (theatrical)
• Screen Gems (1958) (USA) (TV) (syndication)
• Columbia TriStar Home Video (????) (USA) (DVD)
• Columbia TriStar Home Video (????) (USA) (VHS)
• Columbia TriStar Home Video (????) (USA) (video) (laserdisc)
• RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video (????) (USA) (VHS) (laserdisc)

Also Known As:

Pest Pilots (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

17 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

This short makes extensive use of footage from the earlier short Boobs in Arms (1940).

Goofs:

Continuity: After Moe falls in the well, the film dissolves to the three men back at work on the airplane, and Moe is wearing the same jumpsuit as at the beginning of the short. But earlier, he had it covered in rubber cement, inflated with gas, and he left it floating mid-air when he was blasted out of it, so how could he get back into the same jumpsuit?

Quotes:

Larry: We dunno anything about flyin'!
Moe Wrong: Neither did the Wright brothers, but they flew! Anything the Wright brothers can do, the Wrong brothers can do! Right?
Larry: Right!
Curly Wrong: Wrong.
[Moe and Larry gang up on him]
Curly Wrong: Brothers!

Movie Connections:

References The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939)

Great for most of it, but...

The Wrong brothers building an airplane is a great idea, and the stooges do their classic comedy for most of this short. But when they crash their plane and the writers ran out of ideas, they had to recycle footage from Boobs in Arms to pad out the rest of the running time.

While there's nothing terribly bad about this, it's so obvious. The tone of the whole short changes. The ending--with the boys in the army--has absolutely nothing to do with what's gone before. They obviously recorded the introduction--Moe reading a draft letter--to try to make the ending somehow be related to the rest of the movie.

I only wish they had worked a little harder on an original ending--it would have made the short a true gem. But this ending is a let-down, so it's difficult to give it all the love I want to give it. I guess they just ran out of time.