From my favorite movies..

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Perhaps one of the more controversial stooge shorts, regardless of who was 3rd stooge. I've seen many take issue with this one--in particular, the character of Sergeant MacGillicuddy played by Stanley Blystone; the argument being that the violence he dishes out on the stooges is too real.I think I can see where those views are coming from--but, I've always looked at MacGillicuddy as being a more extreme version of the already cartoonish stooges. Besides, some of the pain he dishes out on the boys is just plain funny--i.e. the punch that Larry gets after he kisses Blystone on the cheek.And there are just too many funny moments in this short for me not to give it a passing grade--maybe the best of them all being the stooges free-wheeling destruction with the cannon--which leads to another moment that a lot of fans take issue with; the ending with the Sarge blowing the stooges away.Maybe I'm weird, but that scene never fails to crack me up--especially that slo-mo pan to the smoking boots. Overall, "Half-Shot" is one of the best by the stooges during a time period (1936) where they never turned out a bad short.

This kind of story happened in at least three of The Three Stooges short, and all of them are pretty funny. This wasn't as good as the others until the last five minutes when it takes a strange turn with a big cannon, and then finishes strong.The basic storyline - see if this sounds familiar - is the boys are in the army, are lazy slobs and then get picked on my a gruff sergeant. They are discharged (or the war is over), the boys immediately get revenge on the sergeant when they find out he has no power over them anymore. Later, through a mistake, they re-up into the army and now face that same sergeant, who is out to kill them, at this point.Here, it's 1918 and World War I is raging. We see real footage of soldiers on the battlefield, running and shooting. Then we see the Three Stooges snoring away in a foxhole. The sergeant gives them the business. The same day, it's announced the war is over and on their way out the door, the Stooges really do a number on the Sarge, beating the crap out of him.There are parts of this comedy, I might say, that almost shocked me in that some of it wasn't slapstick, but almost downright meanness and torture. The violence goes past the normal laughs. For example, in one scene the Sargent has the boys put their heads underwater and then fires a pistol in the water, deafening the boys. That is nasty. It reminded of a brutal scene in the film noir, "The Big Combo."Anyway, fast-forward to 1935. It's the Depression and the boys are desperate for work. (They haven't aged a bit, by the way.) Because they are kind of ignorant and never read signs, they wind up re-enlisting....and, of course, the same sergeant is there! What happens afterward is a bit of a surprise. The gag turns out to be something else besides the animosity between the Stooges and the Sarge, but the boys' misuse of a huge cannon during a supposed practice session. The Stooges wind up blowing up houses, chimneys and finally, a ship in our own Navy! Those scenes with the cannon are very funny and ends this comedic short on a high note.

This army comedy, a favorite milieu with star comedians, is one of the better Three Stooges shorts I've watched. Its plot – starting in WWI and then moving on to the present (1935, in this case) – anticipates one of Laurel & Hardy's best feature-films, BLOCKHEADS (1938). The boys are layabouts during the war (they even manage to sleep through combat!) who fall foul of their sergeant; years later, we find them as tramps willing to do any work. They're eventually directed to an office building which, unbeknownst to them, is the city's army recruiting post: there they meet again their old sergeant, who's naturally keen to get even with them! During the film's surreal climax, where they're assigned to cannon-fire practice, The Stooges contrive to sink a visiting Admiral's ship and demolish a number of buildings in the vicinity – for which they're soon facing the firing squad…only the weapon turns out to be the cannon itself and the executor of the sentence is none other than their vindictive sergeant!

I have to disagree with whoever puts down this one because I think there are many hilarious moments! The conflict the stooges have with their sergeant is hilarious! This theme would later be revisited in "Boobs In Arms" (1940). One of the best Curly shorts.Grade: A+