No Census, No Feeling is the 50th 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.
Another classic episode. One of the most comedically violent of the Stooges shorts I have seen so far.
THE PLOT
The Stooges are caught sleeping in a closed awning situated over a store. A brief argument among the trio results in Curly casually tossing a pot over his shoulder, breaking several dishes. The shopkeeper (Max Davidson) becomes irate, calls the police and chases the Stooges for vandalizing his store, who quickly dash into a building’s revolving door. Upon exiting the building, the Stooges have clipboards in tow, having inadvertently landed jobs as census takers.
The boys work their way into the home of a socialite (Symona Boniface) who is concerned with a lack of participants in her weekly Bridge game. The Stooges happily comply, and join the game. In the interim, Curly begins to flirt with the socialite's maid, who is in the process of preparing a large bowl of punch. Curly finds that the drink is “not sweet enough” so, and ends up adding Alum salt to the mix, mistaking it for powdered sugar. Within minutes, everyone is mumbling their words as their lips become puckered.
Afterwards, the Stooges are still searching for people to interview for the census. They eventually come upon a nearby football game, and become thrilled as the prospect of speaking with everyone in the stadium. The trio don football players’ uniforms and bypass the guard in the guises of differing players and storm the field. They try asking questions to the players, who end up ignoring them, and Curly finds an ice cream vendor and takes off after him, somehow hijacking his wagon. The Stooges get pulled into the game and, after a few bouts of hardship, get an idea…if they would get the ball away from the players they would have no choice but to answer their questions. With that, Larry and Moe attach chains to the pants of two players and pull them off, distracting the players enough for Curly to grab the ball and run away. But the players notice him and give chase. Curly continues running like mad as Larry pulls the ice cream wagon, carrying Moe behind him. Moe throws fistfuls of ice cream at the players and the referee who are chasing them, and the Stooges run out of the stadium.
TRIVIA
No Census, No Feeling was filmed on May 25–29, 1940. The film title is a parody on the expression "No sense, no feeling".
Curly confuses "census" for "the censor", thinking he is working for Will H. Hays. (See below)
In one scene, Curly believes that it is Independence Day in October, claiming that "you never can tell; look what they did to Thanksgiving!". This is a reference to an event in 1939 when Franklin Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving to an earlier Thursday in November to lengthen the Christmas shopping season. This act angered many Republicans and, after some time, the holiday ended up moving to the fourth Thursday of November.
The football sequences were filmed at USC.
A colorized version of this film was released in the 2004 DVD collection entitled "Stooged & Confoosed".
Who the heck was Will H.Hays?
Will H. Hays became President of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) shortly after the organization's founding in 1922.
The goal of the organization was to renovate the image of the movie industry in the wake of the scandal surrounding the alleged murder of model and actress Virginia Rappe, of which film star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was accused, and amid growing calls by religious groups for federal censorship of the movies. Hiring Hays to "clean up the pictures" was, at least in part, a public relations ploy and much was made of his conservative credentials, including his roles as a Presbyterian deacon and past chairman of the Republican Party.
Catholic bishops and lay people tended to be leery of federal censorship and favored the Hays approach of self-censorship; these included the outspoken Catholic layman Martin J. Quigley, publisher of Exhibitors Herald-World (a trade magazine for independent exhibitors). For several months in 1929, Martin Quigley, Joseph Breen, Father Daniel A. Lord S.J., Father FitzGeorge Dinneen S.J., and Father Wilfred Parsons (editor of Catholic publication America) discussed the desirability of a new and more stringent code of behavior for the movies. With the blessing of Cardinal George W. Mundelein of Chicago, Father Lord authored the code, which later became known as "The Production Code", or "The Code", or "The Hays Code". It was presented to Will Hays in 1930 who said, "My eyes nearly popped out when I read it. This was the very thing I had been looking for".
The Production Code enumerated three "General Principles":
- No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.
- Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented.
- Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.
Specific restrictions were spelled out as "Particular Applications" of these principles:
- Nudity and suggestive dances were prohibited.
- The ridicule of religion was forbidden, and ministers of religion were not to be represented as comic characters or villains.
- The depiction of illegal drug use was forbidden, as well as the use of liquor, "when not required by the plot or for proper characterization."
- Methods of crime (e.g. safe-cracking, arson, smuggling) were not to be explicitly presented.
- References to alleged "sex perversion" (such as homosexuality) and venereal disease were forbidden, as were depictions of childbirth.
- The language section banned various words and phrases that were considered to be offensive.
- Murder scenes had to be filmed in a way that would discourage imitations in real life, and brutal killings could not be shown in detail.
- "Revenge in modern times" was not to be justified.
- The sanctity of marriage and the home had to be upheld.
- "Pictures shall not infer that low forms of sex relationship are the accepted or common thing."
- Adultery and illicit sex, although recognized as sometimes necessary to the plot, could not be explicit or justified and were not supposed to be presented as an attractive option.
- Portrayals of miscegenation were forbidden.
- "Scenes of Passion" were not to be introduced when not essential to the plot.
- "Excessive and lustful kissing" was to be avoided, along with any other treatment that might "stimulate the lower and baser element."
- The flag of the United States was to be treated respectfully, and the people and history of other nations were to be presented "fairly."
- "Vulgarity", defined as "low, disgusting, unpleasant, though not necessarily evil, subjects" must be "subject to the dictates of good taste."
- Capital punishment, "third-degree methods", cruelty to children and animals, prostitution and surgical operations were to be handled with similar sensitivity.
Wow, have we come a long way since then.
Curly Clips
Here are two short clips from this episode highlighting Curly's talent:
Curly And The Census: Episode 50 No Census No Feeling Clip1
Curly Likes Vanilla: Episode 50 No Census No Feeling Clip1
Enjoy the search!
Curly Code: 260-086