Scheming Schemers

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Scheming Schemers is a 1956 short subject directed by Jules White starring American slapstick comedy team The Three Stooges (Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Shemp Howard). It is the 173rd entry in the series released by Columbia Pictures starring the comedians, who released 190 shorts for the studio between 1934 and 1959.

Moe, Larry, and Shemp are beginner plumbers answering a call from Mr. Norfleet, whose wife has dropped a diamond ring in the bathroom drain. Moe and Larry find the ring, but drop it once more down the drain. So the Stooges must search for it throughout the household plumbing, inadvertantly crossing the electrical and plumbing pipes in the process. Meanwhile, two guests at the Norfleets' party are planning to steal a valuable painting. After successfully finding the ring, Moe and Larry stumble across the thief stuffing the painting into a pipe. Chasing him into the party, a huge pie fight breaks out.^[1]

• Moe Howard as Moe
• Larry Fine as Larry
• Shemp Howard as Shemp (stock footage, filmed in 1949)
  • Joe Palma as Shemp (body double, filmed in 1956)
• Emil Sitka as Walter Norfleet
• Kenneth MacDonald as Mr. Allen
• Christine McIntyre as Mrs. Allen (stock footage, filmed in 1949)
  • Connie Cezon as Mrs. Allen (body double, filmed in 1956)
• Dudley Dickerson as Chef (stock footage, filmed in 1940 and 1949)

• Symona Boniface as Mrs. Norfleet (stock footage, filmed in 1949)
• Herbert Evans as Wilkes, butler (stock footage, filmed in 1949)
• Helen Dickson as indignant party guest (stock footage, filmed in 1946)
• Victor Travers as sleeping party guest (stock footage, filmed in 1946)
• Al Thompson as party guest (stock footage, filmed in 1946)
• Judy Malcolm as party guest (stock footage, filmed in 1946)

Scheming Schemers is a remake of Vagabond Loafers, which in itself was a remake of A Plumbing We Will Go with former Stooge Curly Howard; additional pie fight footage was borrowed from Half-Wits Holiday. This makes Scheming Schemers the only Three Stooges short to use footage from three previous short subjects. This film is also the last to contain new footage with longtime Stooges supporting actor Kenneth MacDonald.

Shemp Howard passed away in November 1955 after completing four Stooge comedies for that year. However, the Three Stooges were contractually obligated to deliver eight comedies to Columbia Pictures annually. To fulfill this requirement, producer Jules White devised a method to produce four additional shorts "featuring Shemp" by utilizing existing footage of Howard and supplementing it with newly filmed scenes featuring stand-in Joe Palma.^[2] This technique, which involves using a body double to complete an unfinished film, has since been termed "Fake Shemp," a phrase popularized by producer Sam Raimi during the production of his feature film The Evil Dead.^[3]

In Scheming Schemers, Joe Palma is depicted in a scene where "Shemp" appears with his back to the camera, honking the horn of the Stooges' jeep. Palma is then shown gathering several pipes, strategically obscuring his face from view. The sole line of dialogue attributed to Shemp — "Hold yer horses, will ya?" — was in fact Shemp's voice, repurposed from the soundtrack of a recent Stooge short, Creeps (originally filmed in 1947 for The Ghost Talks. This new footage was filmed on January 16, 1956, a mere six weeks after Shemp's passing.^[4]

• List of American films of 1956

• Scheming Schemers at IMDb
• Scheming Schemers at AllMovie
• Scheming Schemers at threestooges.net
• What is a Fake Shemp?