Ups and Downs

After a judge sentences a man to prison, he uses his authority to adopt the mans's daughter then makes sure that the man will spend the rest of his life in prison. Outraged, the convict breaks out of prison to take his revenge on the judge.

In Brooklyn circa 1900, the Nolans manage to enjoy life on pennies despite great poverty and Papa's alcoholism. We come to know these people well through big and little troubles: Aunt Sissy's scandalous succession of "husbands"; the removal of the one tree visible from their tenement; and young Francie's desire to transfer to a better school...if irresponsible Papa can get his act together.

Stan and Ollie travel to the mountains for Ollie's health, and park their caravan near a well into which a gang of moonshiners have earlier dumped their moonshine; and the boys proceed to quench their thirst thinking that it is iron-rich mountain water. The real trouble doesn't begin, though, until a married motoring couple stop by to borrow some gasoline, and the already-cranky husband leaves his thirsty wife with the boys while he goes off to refill his car's empty gas-tank. A sequel was made to this film: TIT FOR TAT, q.v.

The Stooges have taken over the country of Moronica. Moe is Hailstone the Dictator, Curly is a Field Marshal and Larry is Minister of Propaganda. The Stooges are planning with their allies to conquer the world, which mainly consists of fighting over a globe. The former king's daughter gets into their headquarters and plants a bomb which Curly detonates. All ends well as the king regains control of the country and the Stooges wind up as trophies on the wall.

Button Gwinett Brown is a freshman congressman on a mission to rid Washington of corruption. He quickly runs afoul of the powerful Senator Norton...

Two bumblers, failures as businessmen and air raid wardens, stumble across a nest of Nazi saboteurs bent on blowing up the local magnesium plant.

Somewhere in Europe, in a city occupied by the Nazis, a gentle school teacher finds himself torn between collaboration and resistance, cowardice and courage.

Edinburgh, 1831. Among those who undertake the illegal trade of grave robbery is Gray, ostensibly a cab driver. Formerly a medical student convicted of grave robbery, Gray holds a grudge against Dr. MacFarlane who had escaped detection and punishment.

In this Columbia All-Star Comedy short (production number 8438), Joe DeRita is a bachelor inventor who reads a marriage proposal written on an egg by a lonely widow with one child. He accepts, and soon finds out the boy is the "bad" part of the egg in the title, as he soon destroys whatever it was that Joe had invented.

An Australian nurse discovers an effective new treatment for infantile paralysis, but experiences great difficulty in convincing doctors of the validity of her claims.

The boys think their days of fishing to feed themselves have come to an end, when Stan's rich uncle Ebenezer dies leaving a large estate. But they soon learn that Ebenezer was murdered and all the relatives, including Stan, are suspects.

The Stooges are pest exterminators who drum up business by planting vermin in a ritzy mansion where a party is going on. They are hired, but must pose as guests to work unobserved. They ruin a piano and generally make a mess of the party, but the hostess passes them off as vaudeville comedians and they are invited to join the guests on a fox hunt.

Curly wins $50,000 in a radio contest and the stooges move into the Hotel Costa Plente. Their suite is furnished with many expensive items which they systematically wreck, running up quite a bill. When they discover that, minus tax deductions, the jackpot is only $4.85 they quickly agree to marry three pretty rich widows who are also living in the hotel. The "widows" are actually gold diggers conniving to the get the jackpot money. When the girls find out what the jackpot is really worth, the boys get conked with champagne bottles.

The Stooges are key witnesses at a murder trial. Their friend Gail Tempest, who dances at the Black Bottom cafe where the Stooges are musicians, is accused of killing Kirk Robin.

Street musicians Stan and Ollie have no success earning money in the dead of winter in a bad neighborhood. Their instruments are destroyed in an argument with a woman, but their luck seems to turn when Stan finds a wallet.

When American newspaperman and adventurer Henry M. Stanley comes back from the western Indian wars, his editor James Gordon Bennett sends him to Africa to find Dr. David Livingstone, the missing Scottish missionary. Stanley finds Livingstone ("Dr. Livingstone, I presume.") blissfully doling out medicine and religion to the happy natives. His story is at first disbelieved.