Vagabond Loafers

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Vagabond Loafers

Directed by	Edward Bernds
Produced by	Hugh McCollum
Written by	Elwood Ullman
Starring	Moe Howard Larry Fine Shemp Howard Emil Sitka Symona Boniface Kenneth MacDonald Christine McIntyre Dudley Dickerson
Cinematography	Vincent J. Farrar
Editing by	Henry DeMond
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	October 6, 1949
Running time	15' 51"
Country	United States
Language	English
Preceded by	Malice in the Palace
Followed by	Dunked in the Deep
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IMDb profile

Vagabond Loafers is the 118th short subject starring American slapstick comedy team the Three Stooges. The trio made a total of 190 shorts for Columbia Pictures between 1934 and 1959.

[edit] Plot

The Stooges are inept plumbers at Day and Nite Plumbers. Moe is busy reading "How to Be a Plumber" when the phone rings with a request to fix a leaky faucet at the home of the wealthy Norfleets (Emil Sitka and Symona Boniface). The leak happens to spring up while the Norfleets are throwing a dinner party to celebrate the acquisition of a $50,000 Van Brocklin painting.

Moe struggles with the pipes in the basement while Shemp manage to trap himself inside a maze of pipes in the bathroom. Larry is assigned to finding the water cutoff and proceeds to dig up most of the the lawn in an attempt to turn off the water. Shemp later surmises that the pipes fail to work properly because they are "clogged up with wires." Shemp and Moe proceed to remove the electrical system from the pipes and connect a water pipe to the freshly available pipe. The cook (Dudley Dickerson), who is in the kitchen trying to prepare an extravagant meal for the Norfleets, watches in bewilderment as the stove and chandelier gush water. "This house is sho' gone crazy!"

As the Norfleets house transforms into Niagara Falls, two party guests named Mr. and Mrs. Allen (Christine McIntyre and Kenneth MacDonald) manage to swipe the prized Van Brocklin painting. The Stooges manage, however, to catch onto the Allens scheme and retrieve the painting. When the grateful Norfleets offer the Stooges a handsome reward, Shemp says, "We don't want no reward, lady. It'll put us in a higher tax bracket!"

[edit] Notes

Vagabond Loafers is a reworking of 1940's A Plumbing We Will Go, and would itself be remade in 1956 as Scheming Schemers.

[edit] Further reading

Moe Howard and the Three Stooges; by Moe Howard [1], (Citadel Press, 1977).
The Three Stooges Scrapbook; by Jeff Lenburg, Joan Howard Maurer, Greg Lenburg [2] (Citadel Press, 1994).
The Three Stooges: An Illustrated History, From Amalgamated Morons to American Icons; by Michael Fleming [3](Broadway Publishing, 2002).
One Fine Stooge: A Frizzy Life in Pictures; by Steve Cox and Jim Terry [4], (Cumberland House Publishing, 2006).