Cash and Carry (1937) User Reviews

The Stooges Had Good Hearts

[ccthemovieman-1 · 8/10 · 30 August 2010]

The Stoogies Are Soft-Hearted Guys The boys have had six months of bad luck prospecting and return home ("The City Dump!"). They barely make it as the tires keep blowing out. There is a donkey in the back seat. (Don't ask.)

The Stooges have a good heart.....really good since when they come back to the shack they see some disabled little boy who had moved in to their place with his "sis." The kid ("Jimmy") volunteers to leave but they can't to that to him....better they are homeless, than him. This is one reason we always root for these guys.

Anyway, the main storyline gets set up right after Curly tries to find a couple of good tires at the junkyard to put on their car. Moe finds a can filled with coins and the boys now think the real gold mine must be in the junkyard. Shortly afterward, they find out its the kids' life savings and he's using it toward getting an operation! ha ha - typical Three Stooges corny storyline, but it makes the boys look good, as they volunteer to try to get the money so the kid can have the operation.

What follows next is total insanity, not unusual for a Three Stooges short. It all starts when the boys take the boys money to the bank where at least he'd get some interest on it. At the bank, a couple of crooks spot them as "easy marks" (ya think?) and the story goes on from there.

Overall, it's another fun Stooges and definitely worth your time.

Note: The older sister was played by Harley Wood, an actress who was tall and pretty but didn't have much a film career. However, she went on to do a number of good things including song-writing. The young boy, meanwhile, was Sonny Bupp and he wound up playing Orson Welles son in the famous film "Citizen Kane." He died in 2007 and had the distinction of being the oldest living cast member of that ultra-famous film.

Executive Clemency

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 16 June 2011]

Cash And Carry was one of the best Three Stooges short subjects in their careers. It was also one of the few that touched on what was going on in the real world of 1937.

Moe, Larry, and Curly are back from the country looking for work, riding in their old jalopy which still has a crank starter in the front. They've blown their last tire just as they arrive in their residence which is a shack in the city dump. But when they get there they find that Sonny Bupp and his big sister Harley Wood have taken up residence thinking it was abandoned.

They stay and Sonny is lame and wearing a brace and they're trying to raise money for an operation. The boys offer to help, but remember this is the Three Stooges.

They take the money raised and some crooks chisel them out of it by selling them an abandoned house where supposedly 'treasure' was hid. So the boys go digging and you can imagine the possibility of gags with them using picks and shovels.

As for the rest of the film think of the Abbott&Costello classic, Coming Round The Mountain and you know how this comes out.

Except in the end they get a White House audience with a crippled president who needed a few laughs. FDR grants them executive clemency and they need it and offers to pay for Sonny Bupp's operation.

Cash And Carry has a bit more sentimentality than most Three Stooges shorts. But in focusing on the real problems of homelessness and the Great Depression the film is a cut above the usual slapstick comedy the boys normally do.

First Stooges' Film for Trio to Show Sympathy

[springfieldrental · 8/10 · 25 November 2023]

By their 25th episode, The Three Stooges had settled on a formula playing characters from the lower class, while at the same time ridiculing those rich people in the upper class. A prime example was in September 1937's "Cash and Carry," where the three are frustrated gold prospectors who return to their digs at the local city dump, only to find a handicapped boy with his older sister living in their quarters.

"Cash and Carry" is the first Three Stooges' film where they care about the less fortunate, breaking new ground for Moe, Larry and Curly. The Stooges find the little boy Jimmy (Sonny Bupp) inside doing his homework. His crippled leg needs surgery, and the normally apathetic trio show their sympathy for the boy when they spot Jimmy's handicap while he's walking out of the shack. Child actor Sonny Bupp later played Charles Foster Kane's son in 1941's "Citizen Kane," and was the last surviving cast member of the Orson Welles' classic, passing away in 2007 at 79. Discovering he and his sister (Harlene Wood) have $62 saved up for the $500 operation, the Stooges suggest an interest bearing savings account at the local bank. Unfortunately, they find out from a bank teller it would take over 100 years for their account to reach $500. Two unscrupulous men, played by actors Nick Copeland and Lew Davis, overhear their dilemma and con them into buying a map for $62 that details where to find pirate Captain Kidd's buried treasure in an abandoned house. The Stooges proceed to look for the treasure by the only way they can with picks, shovels and dynamite that ultimately results in the discovery of a horde of gold. Such action, however, lands them a personal meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

One of their best & one of my favorites

[garysheski · 10/10 · 14 May 2009]

This one ranks right up there with 3 LITTLE PIRATES, as an excellent episode, a rather touching story, if you will, with our 3 boys doing what they can to help the little boy (Sonny Bupp). What makes it unique is that even though they hit each other with blunt objects, there's only a small handful of slaps and pokes, and no slapstick at all in any scene with the boy. Thoughfully arranged and worked out. A keeper in my book. Anyone unfamiliar with the Stooges, or who doesn't like them at all, should watch this one to see they could be relatively decent actors as well as comedians, in the way they interact with the boy and his sister. And accepting a pardon from FDR himself puts this one in the right historical context of the depression.

One of my favorite Stooges shorts

[Maniac-9 · 10/10 · 10 March 2012]

This short about how Moe, Larry and Curly try to find gold to help a crippled boy get a surgery but accidentally end up breaking into the national reserve is one of my favorite movies they've ever done.

The joke when they're digging a hole in the basement and are too deep into the hole to throw the dirt up to the top and Curly asks Moe where he's supposed to put the dirt and Moe responds with dig another whole for it still makes me bust out laughing.

The Stooges had a special charm to them that I can't see anyone else being able to pull off their sort of humor and people not thinking it's stupid.

walla walla

[movifan1785 · 21 August 2002]

Moe, Larry and Curly find a cripled boy and his sister living in there home at the dump yard and they need five hundred dollors to fix the little boys leg so the stooges meet these guys who trick them into getting lots of money, I won't say anything else cuz I will give it away so go watch it......NOW

solid Stooges

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 31 December 2019]

Larry, Curly, and Moe are struggling prospectors. Their car is on its last tire. The guys find a crippled boy and his sister living in their City Dump home. They need $500 for an operation to fix the boy's walk. The guys are taken by two con men who claims to know about a treasure hidden inside a house. I would have love the Stooges play around in the dump. It's filled with possibilities. Otherwise, it's solid Stooges.

Very different Three Stooges short!

[Movie Nuttball · 10/10 · 30 July 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 one of the most different Three Stooge shorts of all. Some it is really serious and the beginning of the short is unique. There is very good acting by the Stooges and the cast which includes Sonny Bupp, Nick Copeland, Lew Davis, Lester Dorr, John Ince, Eddie Laughton, Al Richardson, Cy Schindell, and Harley Wood. To all Three Stooges fans in recommend that they should see this!!

Cash and Carry and Curly

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 27 December 2017]

"Cash and Carry" is an 18.5-minute live action short film from 1937, so this little black-and-white movie has its 80th anniversary this year. If you don't know yet that this is a Three Stooges short film when reading the names of writers and directors here, that's okay, but the names Fine and Howard² really should make it obvious. It is one of their earlier works here and Curly is of course still on board. There is more story than usual in here, but still a great deal of the typical Stooges slapstick comedy in the middle of it all. Also a bit of an emotional story as the trio is looking for a treasure to pay a disabled child's expensive operation. Sadly, the way in which the boy disappears for almost the entire film before returning eventually in the very last scene makes it pretty difficult to see it as a touching film. The comedy approach is the usual. It's not too likely you will see this if you haven't seen too many other (or any other) Stooges works, so you can decide for yourself if you wanna check it out. There were two or three moments actually where Curly gives it to Moe in a manner that justify Moe's violent outbursts to some extent that were funny like the hammer scene. Still Moe did go pretty easy on the other two this time. Perhaps they wanted to keep the element of harmony up given the altruist content in here. Political films aren't a rarity for the Stooges, but seeing the White House and the President (well an actor playing him) is nothing too common. But it is not interesting enough to make up for the great deal of mediocrity before that. I give it a thumbs-down. Skip the watch.

Prospecting for a junkyard gold mine

[slymusic · 22 September 2009]

"Cash and Carry" is a wonderful Three Stooges short directed by Del Lord. Moe, Larry, and Curly display a beautiful touch of humanity when they not only allow a crippled boy (Sonny Bupp) to stay inside their junkyard shack but also try to raise $500 for the boy's leg operation.

Highlights: The opening shots are quite memorable as the Stooges ride towards their home in a broken-down automobile while Curly shares a carrot with a mule. Curly tries to help the boy with his homework, claiming that six plus six equals boxcars. There's no holding back when the Stooges use picks, shovels, and sledgehammers to punch holes in the "wallas", dig dirt, and cause certain parts of the building to collapse.

At the end of "Cash and Carry", the Stooges get in trouble with the United States Treasury and actually receive a pardon from President FDR himself (played by Al Richardson). Very odd.

Nice Stooges Short

[Michael_Elliott · 19 June 2009]

Cash and Carry (1937)

*** (out of 4)

The Three Stooges find a crippled boy and his sister living in their junk yard so they go to deposit their money in the bank so that nothing happens to it. The boys end up trading the money away for a "buried treasure", which two con men tell them is in a house, which they soon destroy trying to look for the goods. This here is a pretty good short for the boys, which features a similar plot to the one that would be used in LARCENY, INC. (and later SMALL TIME CROOKS). The movie features plenty of nice laughs from start to finish even though there aren't any real loud ones. My favorite sequence is towards the end when all three men are down in this giant hole they dug when they realize they don't have any place to throw the new dirt so they decide to dig another hole just to put the new dirt in. Moe ends up getting beat up pretty bad by the other two who keep swinging their shovels. The opening stuff dealing with the junk car and its bad tires is pretty funny as well but the ending is where the film really works.