THE PLOT
Unable to purchase a bottle of beer due to Prohibition, the Stooges opt to brew some of the stuff themselves. A mix-up with a telephone call causes each Stooge to think he is the one to put in the yeast, so the yeast is overloaded.The yeast continuously expands causing them to pour the beer into every container they can find, until Curly brings in the bath tub. They successfully bottle their brew only to leave the bottles too close to an open flame. Many of the bottles explode sending corks and suds all over the kitchen.
Unfortunately, Curly ends up selling a bottle at the black market price to a detective, landing the trio in jail. They were due to serve a short amount of time, but Curly tries to smuggle a barrel of beer in jail under his overcoat. The barrel explodes under the heat of lights while the trio has their mugshots taken.
While in prison, the Stooges begin to plot their escape, and end up destroying the saws being used to whittle down the iron bars in their cell. A few days later, the Stooges have a run-in with a fellow convict (Joe Palma), leading them to knock the warden (Vernon Dent) out cold, and landing them on the rock pile. While hammering away, the boys stumble on an old friend also in the clink, Percy Pomeroy (Eddie Laughton), and work together to flee the prison. They are ultimately captured, and sent to solitary confinement.
After nearly half a century later, the graying trio are finally released as senior citizens, in which Curly quips upon leaving "You know what I'm-a gonna do? I'm gonna get myself a tall, big, beautiful bottle of beer!" Moe and Larry become irate and throw Curly back into the jail, leaving him there.
TRIVIA
The title Beer Barrel Polecats is a pun of the song "Beer Barrel Polka". The idea of producing and selling their own beer during Prohibition was borrowed from Laurel and Hardy's 1931 film, Pardon Us.
When the Stooges drop their iron balls chained to their legs, the NBC Chimes are heard, a gag recycled from the team's 1937 short Curly Howard: Back To The Woods.
A colorized version of this film was released in 2007 as part of the DVD collection "Hapless Half-Wits."
Curly's illness
Beer Barrel Polecats was filmed over two days on April 25-26, 1945, several months after Curly Howard suffered a minor stroke. His resulting performances were marred by slurred speech and slower timing. DVD Talk critic Stuart Galbraith IV noted that Curly looked "notably thinner (Curly, Moe, and Larry are about the same weight in this) and inexpressive throughout, his face almost like a mask." Curly's illness prevented him from maintaining the vitality for the duration of the normal 4-5 day filming schedule. To compensate for his unavailability, director Jules White utilized footage from Curly Howard: In The Sweet Pie And Pie and Curly Howard: So Long Mr. Chumps, which featured a healthier and heavier Curly.
Upon hearing that Curly's absence temporarily halted production on the profitable Stooge shorts, Columbia Pictures president Harry Cohn forbade the ailing Stooge from taking any future time off to regain his strength. It was a disastrous course of action that would culminate with Curly suffering a debilitating stroke on the set of Half Wits Holiday in May 1946.
PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS
I realize that at the time, the production of the Stooges' short films was very much a money maker for Columbia Pictures. But you can readily see that Curly looks and sounds very ill in the first half of this short. So ill that they had to recycle old footage from years before to account for Curly's inability to perform. As a kid, I probably didn't notice it, but now, watching these shorts in chronological order, I am pretty much offended by the recycled footage. And as it turns out, giving Curly the proper attention for his illness was very much needed. This short now begins the final ten shorts in which Curly receives top billing. The end of a good thing was looming, and the greedy studio could not figure that out.
I decided that the clip for this one would be the entire first nine minutes of this short, where you can see what is really happening to Curly. The rest of the short is just recycled footage.
Curly Makes Beer: Episode 88 Beer Barrel Polecats Clip1
THE CACHE IS NOT AT THE POSTED COORDINATES.
Gather the numbers from the clip, plug them into the formulas, and get yourself a smiley.
ADD the number of bottles of beer produced TO the page number to which Moe must refer after mixing the ingredients. ADD this new total to the last three digits of the posted North coordinate.
ADD the total number of cakes of yeast used in the brew TO the number of months the boys will get out of jail with good behavior. MULTIPLY this new amount BY the total number of gallons of beer the recipe should produce. SUBTRACT this newest amount from the last three digits of the posted West coordinate.
Have fun! Get the family involved.
Curly Code: 847-136