Dizzy Detectives is the 68th short film starring the American slapstick comedy team The Three Stooges. The trio made a total of 190 shorts for Columbia Pictures between 1934 and 1959.


After an attempt at installing a door with mishaps galore, the boys are recruited by the police chief (Bud Jamison) as police officers. The head of the citizen's league, Mr. Dill (John Tyrrell), warns the police commissioner that he must capture the ape man that is terrorizing the city, or he will have his job.

The boys get a tip that the ape man is burglarizing a particular store and head out to catch him. While there, they encounter a live gorilla, and the thugs that are running the racket, including Mr. Dill, who is conspiring to remove the chief so he can be the successor. The gorilla was taken from a circus and not used to this job. The Stooges proceed to beat up the thugs with all manner of fights. After encountering a fake guillotine set, which shocks Larry and Moe, Curly disposes of the gorilla by head butting him. But beforehand, the gorilla drinks a bottle of nitroglycerin the thugs were carrying. This causes the gorilla to explode. At the end, Curly growls at the severed gorilla head he is holding, which growls back at him.


  • The opening carpentry scenes were lifted from the 1935 short Pardon My Scotch, complete with the shot of Moe's injury during the filming of that scene.
  • Dizzy Detectives was remade in 1951 with Joe Besser and Jim Hawthorne as Fraidy Cat, which, in turn, was remade as Hook A Crook using ample stock footage.


  • Solomon, Jon (2000). The Complete Three Stooges: The Official Filmography and Three Stooges Companion. Comedy III Productions, Inc. ISBN 0-9711868-0-4.