No Census, No Feeling

No Census, No Feeling
File:NoCensusNoFeelingTITLE.jpg
Directed by	Del Lord
Written by	Harry Edwards Elwood Ullman
Produced by	Del Lord Hugh McCollum
Starring	Moe Howard Larry Fine Curly Howard Vernon Dent Symona Boniface Max Davidson John Tyrrell Bruce Bennett
Cinematography	Lucien Ballard
Edited by	Art Seid
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date	October 4, 1940 (U.S.)
Running time	16' 29"
Country	United States
Language	English

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.

Plot

One morning, in a downtown area, a shopkeeper opens up a tarp that hangs over the front of his store, signifying his store to be open. As he does, the Stooges, who are asleep inside, come tumbling out. Moe, in his usual fashion, blames Larry and Curly for it and deals out punishment. In this ensuing melee, Curly casually tosses a pot behind his shoulder, breaking several dishes. The shopkeeper comes out to investigate and notice the Stooges as they run off. He calls for police and, in order to avoid their would-be captors, the Stooges dash into a building’s revolving door. The shopkeeper gets a police officer and the two of them take off after the boys, who have left the building with clipboards in tow. They notice the cop and shopkeeper running at them, so they open their clipboards and block their faces. The cop and keep run past them, not even noticing them. After they do, Moe realizes that they had gotten jobs working for the census, and that they would get four cents a name for gathering information from various citizens. With that said, an attractive woman walks by, piquing the interest of the Stooges. They dash over to her, asking particularly personal question and end up getting her handbag slapping their faces. Moe then says that “from now on, it’s every man for himself”, and the Stooges split up in order to gather all the information they could.

During their ventures, Moe asks a man if he is “married or happy”. The man’s wife screams out his name and throws a dish at him, but the man ducks and the dish crashes into Moe’s head instead, knocking him silly and down the front steps. Moe realizes that he’s “married” and writes the information down. Larry ends up back at the store, interviewing the shopkeeper, who is cleaning up the mess and not noticing him until Larry continues asking question. Recognizing him, the keep swings his broom at Larry, but he ducks and the broom hits the cop instead, who is still at the scene, knocking him into another pile of dishes and destroying them. Larry runs off as the shopkeeper calls for more police. Meanwhile, Curly is actually inside a house interviewing an attractive French maid, who says that she cannot give him any information until she gets permission from the owner of the house. He then walks off to get permission, which makes Curly swoon and lean against a table. The table goes out from under him, making him fall to the floor. As he gets to his feet, he puts on a chef’s hat and starts preparing some food as a knock on the door is heard. The man on the other end is Moe, who does not recognize Curly and starts asking him questions, but once Curly starts “n’yuk”ing humouredly upon being the “one they kept” from a family of three, Moe realizes who the chef really is and beats him up. The abuse ends with Moe, showing some initiative, grinding a cheese grater against Curly’s face, and gouging his eyes. Curly, uncontrollably upset by it all, grabs the grater and, in his fit, grinds it against his own face.

Meanwhile, Moe has journeyed into the living room and finds a man sleeping with a newspaper draped on his face. Moe starts asking the same questions he asked Curly to the man, but Larry, who is laying down on the other end of the couch and is unseen, answers for him, giving some of the same information Curly gave. Moe, recognizing the answers, prods some more until he asks, angrily, if the man is “the one they kept” of the family of three. Larry instead says that he was the one “they threw away”, and Moe, in a fit of rage, strangles the sleeping man, bonking his head several times and waking him up. Realizing his error, he tries to make peace with the man, who ends up cracking his cane over Moe’s head and storming off. Larry looks up and chastises Moe for chasing the man off and demands his four cents. Instead, Moe offers to give him “five” and slaps Larry before chasing him around the room angrily.

Meanwhile, the maid has asked the mistress of the house if she can answer the census questions, but the mistress is more preoccupied with being two players short for her Bridge game. She then walks off to speak with the census taker but ends up instead running into Moe beating Larry up. She calls out to them and the two Stooges spring into action, asking her conflicting questions and getting equally conflicting answers. She then asks the Stooges to stand in for her two missing players and they oblige. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Curly is helping prepare a punch drink but finds it to be “not sweet enough” so, upon searching a cabinet, he finds a box of Alum salt, believes it to be powdered sugar and puts the whole thing into the punch. He helps the maid set the punch up and the game is underway. The maid starts putting punch into small glasses and serves them to the players, who sip at it but end up puckering at the bitterness of the drink. However, they continue drinking it as to not seem rude to the hostess. As the game progresses and more punch is drunk, the puckered lips make the players’ speaking more inaudibly until all they can do is mumble. Curly, meanwhile, is still trying to woo the maid and drinks a ladleful of the punch, reacting wildly to its bitterness. The maid, with puckered lips, asks what went wrong with the punch and Curly, stating that he “didn’t think you cared!”, kisses the maid, who angrily slaps him and stalks off. Curly starts barking at her and Moe gets up, getting an idea as to why the punch is so bitter. He confronts Curly, slapping him for his insolence, and after Curly deals an equal amount of slapping back, he picks up the punch bowl and throws the contents at Curly, who ducks under it. The punch instead hits the hostess, soaking her from head to toe. Curly then runs off as Moe throws that punch bowl at him, successfully hitting him in the head with it. The hostess’ clothes then shrink due to the Alum salt and the other players watch her, laughing muffled laughs.

File:Nocensusfelling.jpg

Moe orders an intimidated Curly to get to work in No Census, No Feeling.

Afterwards, the Stooges are still searching for people to interview for the census but aren‘t finding anyone. As they ponder where everyone is, yelling is heard, and the Stooges spot thousands of people at a football game. They believe that, upon interviewing everyone in the stadium, they will make a fortune, and they make a mad dash to the stadium but are blocked by a security guard. They then 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 officials who are chasing them, and the Stooges run out of the stadium.

Quotes

• Moe: (‘’stopping an attractive woman’’) “Pardon me. What’s your name?”
• Larry: “And your address?”
• Curly: “What’s more important, what’s your phone number? N’yuk n’yuk n’yuk!”

‘’The woman slaps all three Stooges in the face with her handbag and walks off.’’

• Curly: (‘’barks at her angrily’’) “Wrong number!

Moe walks into a kitchen where Curly is wearing a chef's hat and is making food.

• Moe: (mistaking Curly for someone else) "Good morning, chef. I'm the census taker."
• Curly: "Well you caught me at a busy time."
• Moe: "Oh, this will only take a few moments. Now, where were you born?"
• Curly: "Lake Winnipesaki."
• Moe: "Lake Winn-...how do you spell that?"
• Curly: (grating cheese) "W-O...WOOF! Make it Lake Erie, I got an uncle there."
• Moe: (getting irritated) "What was your family decomposed of?"
• Curly: "Well, I'll tell ya...there was a litter of three, and I was the one they kept!"

Curly, humored, starts '"nyuk"ing which provokes Moe's attention. Once he finds out that it's Curly he's been talking to he proceeds to beat him up.'

• Moe: “Now take it easy, lady; we’re census takers! Now then…how old are you?”
• Larry: “What address is this?”
• Madam: (‘’answering Larry’’) “One hundred and two.”
• Moe: “You don’t look a day over eighty.”
• Madam: (‘’turning to Moe’’) “Young man, I’m twenty nine!”
• Moe: (‘’not believing her’’) “Oh, yeah?”
• Madam: “Well, how do I look?”
• Moe: “Oh, you look like a million!”
• Larry: “Ah, she can’t be THAT old.”

Moe and Larry then open her mouth, inspecting it and coming to inane conclusions.

• Larry: “Forty three.”
• Moe: “Fifty!”
• Larry: “Forty three!”
• Moe: “Fifty!”
• Larry: “FORTY THREE!”

Moe then starts yelling “fifty” over and over in a quick fashion. As he stops, Curly suddenly leans into the room.

• Curly: “SOOOOLD AMERICAN!”

A clipboard is then thrown at Curly, hitting him in the face. Curly, angered, turns his back in a huff, as another clipboard is thrown, hitting him in the back of the head. He flies into another room due to the blow and loud crashing sounds are head.

• Moe: (noticing a football stadium full of people) "Boy, there has to be a hundred thousand people in there! We'll make a fortune!" (turns to Curly) "How much is four cents times a hundred thousand?"

Curly starts to physically emulate a combination of an adding machine and a typewriter as loud, typing sound effects and ringing is heard as he calculates the equation. After he is finished he pulls out a long piece of adding machine tape from his coat, reading the results.

• Curly: "A dollar and a half."
• Moe: "...a dollar and a half?"
• Cirly: "That's without tax!"
• Moe: (angrily) "Without tax!" (pounds Curly in the stomach)

• Moe: (initiating a battle plan; points to Larry.) "You take the right end!"
• Larry: "Right!"
• Moe: "I'll take the left end!"
• Larry: "Right!"
• Moe: (to Curly) "What'll you take?"
• Curly: (pulling out an ice cream cone from the cart) "I'll take vanilla!"
• Moe: "You-...oh, you don't LIKE chocolate!"
• Curly: "I still like vanilla!"
• Moe: "Well then, have some!"
• Curly: "Oh, thanks!"

Moe pushes Curly's hand up so he shoves the ice cream into his own face. Curly regards Moe angrily, pulling the cone off his face.

• Larry: "You still like vanilla, eh?"
• Curly: "Yeah!"
• Larry: "Yeah, well I like chocolate!"

Notes

• Curly confuses "census" for "the censor", thinking he is working for Will H. Hays.
• A colorized version of this film was released in 2004. It was part of the DVD collection entitled "Stooged & Confoosed".

External links

• No Census, No Feeling at IMDb
• No Census, No Feeling at AllMovie