Three Tough Onions (1928) User Reviews

the ouevre of cineaste Jules White

[boblipton · 4/10 · 5 August 2002]

Somewhere there is a doctorate waiting for someone who wishes to go over the entire output of director-producer Jules White: or, if not a doctorate, the extreme sympathy of anyone who enjoys good movie comedy. Mr. White is known today as the producer-director of the Three Stooges shorts, which he produced when he was in charge of short subjects for Columbia. Earlier, he had done the "Dogville" series for MGM, in which dogs were wired into costumes and used as the subjects of travesties of popular features. Earlier, he directed silent comedies.

Throughout all of these, Mr. White showed a taste which did not appeal to the lowest common denominator, but actually sank beneath it. Violence, bad acting and bad scripts were his stock in trade.

If you think the Three Stooges are great comedy -- and there are a surprising number of people who do -- then you might enjoy this silent comedy about a schnook victimized by his shrewish wife and plate-juggling brother-in-law. I didn't.

A Rotten Onion!

[mmipyle · 2/10 · 23 October 2019]

"Three Tough Onions" (1928) appears as a short (and added extra) on the Grapevine release of "Open All Night" (1924). The feature is about "rough love" being the way women appreciate their men in a marriage. Well, the short opens with an intertitle that wraps up marriage as a contract of doom and gloom. Then we see two people being married, and when the ceremony is finished the now wife slugs her husband as he tries to get the ceremonial kiss of the bride. She says in an intertitle, "That was to show you who's going to wear the pants!" Next, we see the couple arriving home, and the wife's mother following. Then in comes the brother of the wife. "We're moving in, too!" It gets worse. It turns out that the brother is a juggler. He tries to juggle the dishes, beginning with coffee cups...then saucers... They end up broken on the floor. ...then plates... The husband tries, too. Nope, he isn't any better. The pace becomes frenetic. THEN...suddenly, (and this near the end 9 minutes later) when the husband can't find a decent place to sleep - and this seems as if it's a few days later (but who knows) - he boxes the dickens out of the brother-in-law so that he can have a decent bed. His wife comes in and he threatens her with a box in the kisser; she's startled - and relenting...; then he demands a kiss when he sees that he's now the - boss (Are you kidding? No!)! The wife smiles. THE END

No kidding.

There were a couple of slapstick antics that actually were funny. But...c'mon...this was a rotten onion. It followed the feature that was an eye-opener itself because of its supposedly funny rough love. It wasn't funny. Neither was this. Fortunately it only lasted 11 minutes.

"Three Tough Onions" stars Monte Collins, Estelle Bradley, Robert Graves, Catherine Parrish, and Bobby Burns as the minister who marries Collins and Bradley.