Termites of 1938 (1938) User Reviews

Exterminating a party

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 20 February 2014]

Termites Of 1938 has Moe, Larry, and Curly as the Acme Exterminating company who when we first meet them are trying several new experimental methods of dealing with mice. One particular mouse gets the best of all of them.

But they could be moving up in the world as maid Etta McDaniel calls a wrong number as she is trying for the Acme Escort Bureau. These three as escorts is a concept you have to wrap your head around. But they go to an exclusive society party and start new trends in table manners and then go to work exterminating the party essentially.

Another really funny one from the Stooges.

solid Stooges fun

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 22 November 2019]

A rich lady is desperate to hire an escort for a party. Her maid mistakenly calls pest exterminators Larry, Curly, and Moe. The boys arrive expecting to do some exterminating but the misunderstanding continues. There is some good Stooges fun. I expected more with the food. Spraying the water is fun once but it gets repetitive twice. The rug is a fun bit and so is sawing open the cello. This is good solid Stooges fun.

Good Premise, But Not The Usual Party Havoc

[ccthemovieman-1 · 7/10 · 1 September 2010]

The boys are exterminators. Through a series of events too long to go into here, they wind up at a posh party - the perfect place for the Three Stooges to create mayhem. They are supposed to be an "escort service," and a date of one of the swanky snobs.

If you seen The Three Stooges, chances are you've seen this short or at least a couple like it, where the uncouth slobs (in this one, they are also considered by the uniformed as "those college chaps") wreak havoc at an exclusive party. Yes, that happens here but, sadly, only to a small degree, not like I've seen it in all the other Three Stooges comedies. I kept excepting the wild scenes at the dinner or with the rodents afterward but the humor was bland....not up the boys usual high standards.

The best gags were at the beginning before they ever arrived at this party. Moe, Larry and Curly's efforts to get a mouse are pretty funny. Moe's is not practical, but the most elaborate (involving a cannon!).

Great one!

[Movie Nuttball · 10/10 · 9 August 2005]

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 My favorite Three Stooges shorts with Curly! All Appearing in this short are Beatrice Blinn, Symona Boniface, Bess Flowers, Dorothy Granger, John Ince, and Bud Jamison! This one is so hilarious! Curly has a great performance here and in My opinion its one of his best. There are two others similar like this one called Ants in the Pantry and Pest Man Wins! I strongly recommend all three of these Three Stooges shorts!

wow what fancy dining

[movifan1785 · 20 August 2002]

In this short the stooges are exterminators accidently hired by a rich lady looking for fancy dining tips. The stooges think the lady has termites in her house so they go over and check it out first they eat and the funny parts come when the other people at the table start to copy the stooges, that are also bad eaters. The funniest part is when Curly starts throwing peas in his mouth and everyone else does the same. Overall a good short.

Producer Charlie Chase's Imprint All Over Stooges' Film

[springfieldrental · 8/10 · 13 December 2023]

Comedian Charley Chase had a long career in cinema, beginning in the early days of film in 1912. Working at Keystone Studios alongside a youthful Charlie Chaplin, he learned film making from the ground up, both in front of the camera as an actor as well as behind as a producer, director, and writer. Not only did he handle his own series as a master of embarrassment, but he steered "Our Gang" for producer Hal Roach during its initial episodes. Leaving Roach in 1937, Chase moved on to Columbia Pictures where one of his first assignments was co-producing The Three Stooges' January 1938 "Termites of 1938," a parody on the musical "Gold Diggers of 1937."

Chase's imprint on the Stooges' 28th movie is seen in his love for incidental music on film. The signature song for The Three Stooges, 'Listen to the Mockingbird,' is for the first time played other than in the titles during live action when the Stooges enter the picture. Chase later inserts a Victor Schertzinger composition during the dinner scene where the three, mistaken for escorts, are invited to a swanky dinner party by frustrated Muriel Van Twitchell (Bess Flowers), whose husband elects to go fishing instead. The escorts are really pests exterminators who arrive at the mansion in tuxedos, and are ready to go to work when dinner is announced.

Chase contributed his ideas to the table scene when the Stooges, ever the indecorous dinner guests, display dining manners that would make a kindergartner appear sophisticated in comparison. The party's host, Lord Wafflebottom (Bud Jamison), picks up on the Stooges' unorthodox eating habits, and imitates their style. The guests in turn, not wanting to insult their host, copy him. Chase had written and acted in a similar scene in 1929's 'Modern Love,' and inserted this hilarious eating sequence.

"Termites of 1938" also introduces two signature movements of the Stooges seen in many of their future films. They spontaneously perform their famous Russian Cossack dance, which usually breaks out when an object is dropped on a person's foot or some ice or a mouse somehow gets tucked underneath the clothes on the backs of people. The other is Curly's famous corkscrew maneuver lying on the floor. Seeing mice emerge from Moe's bass fiddle after he inadvertently cuts the instrument in half with a saw instead of playing with a normal bow sends Curly scurrying and twisting onto the floor.

10/10

[verakomarov · 10/10 · 17 October 2021]

Curses are pest exterminators, who are mistakenly hired by a rich lady who seeks an escort to a posh party in society. The trees have destroyed the elegant palace where the party is being held and confuse the guest of honor, the English lord.

Mild, mostly inoffensive Stooges Short

[hypestyle · 4/10 · 13 May 2023]

Moe Larry and Curly get hired as escorts (back when this was an extremely mainstream sort of service, to be VERY clear) for a wealthy New York City society woman. What makes the comedy in this story is that Moe, Larry and Curly are bumbling pest exterminators. They were mistakenly called by the rich woman's maid (the underrated Etta McDaniel, sister of Oscar-winner Hattie). In a bit of retroactively embarrassing character stereotyping, the maid accidentally misreads her boss saying she wants to contact Acme Escort Service "and I hope they're discriminating" as "Acme... Exterminators" as 'the closest thing'..

With that sidebar aside, the dinner party has plenty of hijinks for the guys to get into. They mess up the dinner component of dinner, then they engage in shenanigans when it's time for a little musical entertainment, then they actually start wreaking mayhem inside the home when they decide it's time to get down to the business of finding termites!

This is a milder Three Stooges adventure. Not their worst of the Curly era, but not the strongest, either.

"If You Got 'Em, We'll Get 'Em"

[slymusic · 23 January 2008]

Directed by Del Lord, "Termites of 1938" is a wonderful Three Stooges short that casts the boys as exterminators, but that's not what they are actually hired to do in this film. They are mistaken for escorts when a woman's husband goes on a fishing trip, leaving her without anybody to accompany her to a swank gathering.

Highlights: Moe's miniature cannon invention backfires when it goes off at the wrong time, sending Moe's head through a wall. The Stooges' silly musical interlude, with the aid of a skipping record, is finally interrupted by mice emerging from inside the double bass. The Stooges demonstrate some of the crudest table manners, soon to be imitated by the other party guests (the only problem with this sequence is that Larry is not featured). And finally, probably the funniest gag in the whole short: "Clayhammer!!" (Whack!) "OW!!!" "Clayhammer!!" (Smack!) "OW!!!"

"Termites of 1938" boasts an excellent supporting cast featuring Bess Flowers, Bud Jamison, and Dorothy Granger. The only scene of questionable taste in this film is that of an illiterate African-American maid who becomes the cause of the Stooges accidentally being hired as escorts; in fact, certain network television stations have scissored this politically incorrect scene out of their prints of this film.

A top-notch classic Stoogefest.

[oscar-35 · 13 December 2012]

*Spoiler/plot- Termites of 1938, 1938. Stooge Acme pest exterminators are mistakenly invited to a high-society party to teach the society folks about bad manners and household pests.

*Special Stars- The Three Stooges: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard. Dorothy Granger, Bud Jamison, Bess Flowers.

*Theme- High society won't be the same about manners and house quests.

*Trivia/location/goofs- B & W, Columbia Pictures, film short, pre WW2

*Emotion- This film is nearly a classic in The Stooges genre. This film's opposing High society snobs with The Boys is classic comedy golden plot. A top-notch classic Stoogefest. You must see this.

"At your service day and night, we do the job and do it right. Acme!"

[RainDogJr · 3 March 2009]

Like two weeks ago I found and bought a DVD of The Three Stooges. "Dizzy Doctors" is the title of the DVD and it includes the following short films: Dizzy Doctors (1937), Termites of 1938 (1938), Brideless Groom (1947), Listen Judge (1952), Bubble Trouble (1953) and The Tooth Will Out (1951).

I liked more, not a lot more but more this short than the first from the DVD, Dizzy Doctors, but still this is for me a near great one, it is a very very good short film with some really hilarious parts. Here the Stooges works in the Acme Exterminator Co. and at the beginning we have only people who distort the original message so the Stooges will have a call from a woman who has in her house ants and fleas and certainly who needs them. Of course is quite funny since all began when that woman's maid hears something else of what the woman said to her and ends calling to the Acme Exterminator Co. instead of calling to the Acme Escort Bureau. The woman wanted an escort since she didn't wanted to miss a big party and when he had on the phone the Acme Exterminator Co. was Moe the one who heard something different of what she said. But Moe had the correct address so the Stooges were ready to go to exterminate some ants and fleas. I love that joke after Moe hears ants instead of dance and fleas instead of fees with Curly since Curly hears snails instead of tails and Moe is like "no, not snails you stupid". So there we have the Stooges in the party, the people there think that they are college boys (great memorable moment when English Lord Wafflebottom decides to observe the proper table etiquette since is his first time in America and decides to observe the Stooges since they are college boys! So Lord Wafflebottom imitates the Stooges and the rest of the table imitates Lord Wafflebottom!) and also musicians (another hilarious moment! The Stooges doing playback!). Actually the Stooges will have to stop "partying" and when tat happens is when the less-funny part begins, is just the very last part and still the very last moment is quite funny.

Bland

[Michael_Elliott · 19 June 2009]

Termites of 1938 (1938)

** (out of 4)

A woman needs a date so she decides to call an escort service but she accidentally dials a termite company being led by Moe, Larry and Curly. The boys end up going to this lavished party and all hell breaks loose of course. This is one of the very few Stooges short where I found nothing to be funny. I really don't recall laughing once, which is saying quite a bit but I found this thing to be rather boring from start to finish. The first half deals with the boys trying to catch a mouse by rigging a trap to fire off a canon but of course things go wrong. The second half deals with the party where we get some unfunny gags including one where the rich people start copying the way the Stooges are eating their mashed potatoes. I noticed that Charley Chase was credited with Associate Producer but you can't notice any of his touch here.