Production Information
Title: Commotion On The Ocean
Studio: Columbia
Short Number: 174
Release Date: November 08, 1956
Running Time: 16:6
“When it comes to fish, I’m a common-sewer!”
(Larry)
Commotion On The Ocean Short Take
The Stooges want to be reporters and are looking for stolen secret atomic documents. They unintentionally become stowaways on a ship when they help their neighbor, Mr. Borscht (Gene Roth), who has to leave the country. Bortch is actually an enemy spy, and has hidden microfilm of the stolen documents in watermelons. Our stowaway Stooges get hungry, so they decide to steal the watermelons.
Cast & Crew
| Directed by | Jules White |
|---|---|
| Produced by | Jules White |
| Written by | Felix Adler |
| Starring | Moe Howard Larry Fine Shemp Howard Gene Roth Harriette Tarler Joe Palma Emil Sitka Charles C. Wilson |
| Cinematography | Ray Cory Henry Freulich |
| Edited by | Harold White Henry DeMond |
Commotion On The Ocean Trivia
- The fourth and final “Fake Shemp” short featuring Joe Palma as a double.
- Source: COMMOTION ON THE OCEAN (1956)
- Added by MR77100 on 2009-05-29 12:05:49
- Status: Confirmed
Production Notes
Commotion on the Ocean is a remake of 1949’s Dunked in the Deep, using ample stock footage. In addition, the newspaper room scenes were borrowed from 1948’s Crime on Their Hands. Commotion on the Ocean was the last of four shorts filmed in the wake of Shemp Howard‘s death using earlier footage and a stand-in. It marked the final film to feature Shemp as a stooge. He would be replaced by Joe Besser.
The film’s plot device of hiding microfilm in watermelons is an allusion to an actual event that occurred in 1948. Time magazine’s managing editor Whittaker Chambers, a former Communist spy-turned government informer, accused Alger Hiss of being a member of the Communist Party and a spy for the Soviet Union. In presenting evidence against Hiss, Chambers produced the Pumpkin Papers: five rolls of microfilm of State Department documents, which Chambers had concealed in a hollowed-out pumpkin on his Maryland farm.
“Fake Shemp”
Main article: Fake Shemp
As Shemp Howard had already died, for his last four films (Rumpus in the Harem, Hot Stuff, Scheming Schemers and Commotion on the Ocean), Columbia utilized supporting actor Joe Palma to be Shemp’s double. Even though the last four shorts were remakes of earlier Shemp efforts, Palma’s services were needed to link what few new scenes were filmed to the older stock footage.
For Commotion on the Ocean, Palma appears in one new shot during the newspaper office scene. After Larry says, “Oh, I know Smitty: ‘Under the spreading chestnut tree, the village smitty stands’”, Moe slaps him. Palma gets involved in the slapstick exchange and shields himself in defense, obstructing his face.
All other new footage consists of Moe and Larry working as a duo, often discussing Shemp’s absence aloud:
- Moe: “I wonder what became of that Shemp?”
- Larry: “You know he went up on deck to scout for some food.”
This leads into the short’s only new sequence. Moe and Larry attempt to steal a female passenger’s fish dinner; but end up attempting to eat a taxidermy fish; with disastrous results.
This new footage was shot on January 17, 1956, six weeks after Shemp’s death and one day after the previous film,
