Soup to Nuts (1930)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The only thing memorable about director Benjamin Stoloff's otherwise forgettable comedy "Soup to Nuts" is that it offered audiences their first glimpse of the Three Stooges. Unfortunately, this tepid laffer about a down-on-his-luck costume store owner who goes bankrupt provides the Stooges with only modest exposure. Wisecracking, know-it-all, Schmidt Costume Shop salesman Ted (vaudeville comic Ted Healy of "Bombshell") prefers to hang out with his low wattage pals at the local fire station. They are Shemp, Moe, and Larry who formed the Three Stooges. They don't get a chance to indulge in their slapstick as they would in their later shorts and feature films. Basically, they are fireman who cavort on their ladder fire truck. Cartoonist Rube Goldberg penned the plot for this absurd adventure. It appears that Otto Schmidt (Charles Winninger of "Ziegfeld Girl")lavishes too much time on idle projects, like self-tipping hat, a burglar alarm that involves several gadgets, and complicated device that sweetens coffee. He goes bankrupt and has to turn his costume shop over to creditors. Richard Carlson (Stanley Smith) takes over the store, while Otto takes a job as a waiter at Gus's restaurant. Under no circumstances does Otto want his niece Louise (Lucile Browne) to get wind of his misfortune. Naturally, Louise learns about it at about the same time that Richard lays eyes on her and knows that she is the gal for him. Predictably, Louise wants nothing to do with the dastardly Richard who spends the bulk of this 71-minute epic struggling to win her approval. "Soup to Nuts" contains a rather thin plot with a romantic subplot. Recommended only for die-hard Three Stooges fans because the humor here is creaky.

We well remember hearing about this film and seeing one particular still from it; but for years, that was about it. It was found in lists of stooge filmography; where it provided us with yet another puzzling fact. It was listed as SOUP TO NUTS (FOX, 1930). FOX was a film company that was bought by Darryl F. Zanuck's upstart 20th Century Film Corporation, forming, oddly enough, the 20th CENTURY-FOX Film Corporation! But, being loyal 3 Stooges fans, we knew that their Home Studio was, is and forever be Harry Cohn's Columbia Pictures Corporation. We had been conditioned by the famous Lady Columbia's opening all their films; as well as the tack-on TV openings of "Screen Gems, Television Subsidiary of Columbia Pictures Corporation." And then, just who is this Ted Healy guy, where'd he come from? Why does he seem to boss Shemp, Larry, "Harry" and this Fred Sandborn character? And just who or what is a Fred Sandborn, anyway? Our family was lucky, as our parents, Clem Ryan (1914-1974) and his Bride, Bertha (nee Fuerst, 1917-Still going strong at 91!) were great believers in sharing all knowledge, no matter how seemingly insignificant as this. They clued us in that it originally had been "Ted Healy and His Stooges", although the Stooges broke away from the ego maniacal, tyrannical and alcoholic Healy and were fairly successful, too! SOUP TO NUTS was not only the Stooges first movie, but was an adaptation of a Rube Goldberg novel. Mr. Goldberg was arguably America's pre-eminent cartoonist; becoming famous world-wide for his intricately designed, yet singularly functioned "inventions". As cartoonists of this day were highly regarded as celebs, they often appeared in films; such as this one, in which Mr. Goldberg made an appearance as Rube Goldberg, himself! The film uses the back drop of the old Fire House. Long a favourite in literature, the movies and comic strips, the job of the Fireman has long had status as both the Heroic for what they do when applying their trade and humorous for those down time, between fires stretches (if your referring to a House located in a quiet area). Films such as LIFE OF AN American FIREMAN (Edison Co., 1903), A TITLE UNK. And believed lost Sound Serial (Universal, ca. 1931), FIREHOUSE (TV movie, Metromedia Prod./ABC, 1973), "FIREHOUSE" TV Series (Metromedia/ABC, 1974) and more recently screened projects like BACKDRAFT! (Image Films/Trilogy Entertainment/Universal Pictures, 1991) and John Travolta's LADDER 49 (Touchstone/Beacon/Casey Silver/Fantail/Buena Vista, 2004), all are good examples.On the humorous front, we had the comic strip SMOKEY STOVER by Bill Holman (Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate, 1935-1973). It featured Smokey, the Fire Chief Cash U. Nutt, Smokey's Cat, Spooky and the bizarre 2 wheeled Fireengine, the "Foomobile". In addition, Mr. Holman injected all manner of puns and 'unusual' occurrences such a little hitch-hiker character inquiring, "Nov shmooz kapop?"and framed wall 'licenses' reading 'Notary Sojac'! And Now, Back To SOUP TO NUTS, presented without any commercial interruptions! As for the humor of the film, which at times seems rather scarce to modern viewers, it is episodic, even so very brief and unconnected to other events in the film. In that sense there is a strong resemblance to a 3 or 4 panel comic strip. (Gee, I wonder why!) And one thing we, perhaps, forget that every picture constantly tests the waters for what is funny. It is our perspective of hind-sight, we sometime forget that even standard bits such as Stan Laurel's opposite extremes of Laughing and Crying routines, Oliver Hardy's recurring plunging head deep into the deepest puddle and Buster Keaton's "Great Stone Face" on screen, were all the results of trial & error.Though not hardly a typical Stooges film, there were embryonic signs of what would be later considered to be "Stooges' Standards". As an example of such a routine seen in this movie is their rendition of "You'll never know….", in the format of a Barber Shop Quartet. This was heard so many times in future Producer Jules White's Columbia shorts.Yeah, there's really not a lot here; and it was at one time thought to be lost. But, thanks to UCLA's Motion Picture Archives' preservation program and the formerly great American Film Classics, the world got to see it once again. And, please, Schultz, correct me if this "Old Redhead" is wrong; but I believe that AMC's telecast of ca. 1994-96, during their film preservation week, was the picture's TV Premier.Get it, if for no other reason, as an Historical Curio of both the early "Talkies", as well as the Stooges Historical movie launching pad.

This early talkie's plot deals with--more or less--the unrelated adventures of Ted Healy and some local firemen (Moe, Larry, Shemp and Fred Sanborn). There's very little coherence until the climactic fire, when the Stooges save the day.Two performances stand out, both for the wrong reasons. Ted Healy was a major star in vaudeville and film when this movie was made. If you watch this film, it's hard to understand why, because his routine was just not funny. His offhandedly mean treatment of the Stooges also alienates the viewer. Fred Sanborn provides one of the most bizarre and irritating performances ever captured on film as a mute fireman. He's just so indescribably bad, you have to watch this to believe it.Within a few short years, the Three Stooges were big stars in short subjects and Ted Healy was dead due to a bar fight. This film's worth catching for fans of the Stooges, since it's their feature film debut and historically interesting. Otherwise, stay away.

I first caught this movie at four a.m. one night and found it to be insane, pure insanity. The first half hour or so is pretty slow and not very funny, but full of shouting and sight gags. But things get going when the Stooges (with Shemp, of course) go to a restaurant and annoy the waiter. Then their peformance at a firemen's ball is a lot of fun and starts the movie with some good laughs that continue as the Stooges try to fight a blazing fire. A lot of the Stooge elements of later shorts can be found here (the fixed coin tosses, the slapping, the big fat lady) but the movie doesn't focus enough on the Stooges' personalities to create the hard laughs that the shorts have, and the lackluster performances by the supporting cast cause this movie to lag at times. But the slap fight between Shemp and Moe is hilarious.