What's the Matador?

Infobox Film
name = What's the Matador?


caption =
director = Jules White
producer = Jules White
writer = Saul Ward
Jack White
starring = Moe Howard
Larry Fine
Curly Howard
Suzanne Kaaren
Harry Burns
Dorothy Appleby
Cy Schindell
Eddie Laughton
Don Zelaya
cinematography = L. William O'Connell |
editing = Jerome Thoms
distributor = Columbia Pictures
released = flagicon|US April 23, 1942
runtime = 16' 16"
country = USA
language = English
amg_id = 1:142009
imdb_id = 0035549
preceded_by = "Cactus Makes Perfect"
followed_by = "Matri-Phony"

"What's the Matador?" is the 62nd 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

The Stooges are vaudeville entertainers who trek to Mexico to perform their gag bull fight shtick, with Curly at the brave matador, and Moe and Larry dressed in a bull costume. Along the way, they cross paths with attractive senorita Dolores Sanchez (Suzanne Kaaren). They also cross paths with her jealous and hot-tempered husband José (Harry Burns). In an act of revenge for Curly flirting with Dolores, José pays the bullring attendants to release a live bull into the ring. Moe and Larry flee the ring, but Curly is unaware of the switch. He eventually head-butts the wild animal, and is paraded out of the ring to the rousing cheers of "Olé, Americano!"

Notes

*The title "What's the Matador?" is a pun on the question "what's the matter?" The film itself is a parody of the 1941 film "Blood and Sand". [Solomon, Jon. (2002) "The Complete Three Stooges: The Official Filmography and Three Stooges Companion", p. 209; Comedy III Productions, Inc., ISBN 0971186804]
*"What's the Matador?" would be reworked in 1959 as "Sappy Bull Fighters", using minimal stock footage from the original.

References

Further reading

*"Moe Howard and the Three Stooges"; by Moe Howard, (Citadel Press, 1977). ISBN 0806507233
*"The Three Stooges Scrapbook"; by Jeff Lenburg, Joan Howard Maurer, Greg Lenburg (Citadel Press, 1994). ISBN 0806509465
*"The Three Stooges: An Illustrated History, From Amalgamated Morons to American Icons"; by Michael Fleming (Broadway Publishing, 2002). ISBN 0767905563
*"One Fine Stooge: A Frizzy Life in Pictures"; by Steve Cox and Jim Terry, (Cumberland House Publishing, 2006). ISBN 1581823630