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| Stooges |
The evil queen (Patricia Medina) imprisons her stepdaughter, Snow White (Carol Heiss), because the queen's mirror tells her she is the more beautiful of the two. Meanwhile Prince Charming (Edson Stroll) was banished as a boy and is now a traveling player with his adoptive fathers, the Three Stooges (Joe DeRita, Larry Fine, Moe Howard), who also sell the tonic "Yuk.". When the prince discovers who he is, he determines to rescue the princess and gain back his kingdom, but the queen and Count Oga (Guy Rolfe) may put a crimp in his plans. Snow White and the Three Stooges is a very odd Stooges feature, in that there's not much of their trademark shtick, and the movie is more or less played straight! True, there have been plenty of comedies where the comedians mug while the other cast members play it seriously, but the Stooges normally made farcical films and in a lot of this picture there is not even an attempt to garner laughs. Carol Heiss was an Olympic-class figure skater -- a skating sequence is the highlight of the movie -- but while she's perfectly competent in this she only made one movie. Edson Stroll [The Three Stooges in Orbit] makes an excellent Prince Charming; Medina [The Magic Carpet] is nastily effective (as the queen), as is Rolfe [Mr. Sardonicus]; and there are also roles for Marie Blake as a nursemaid; Buddy Baer as a soldier; Edgar Barrier as the briefly-seen king; and Mel Blanc as the voice of the puppet, Quinto. The Stooges aren't given enough to do and the film is less of a parody than a rather dark fantasy film. The stooges have no problem capably handling the more "dramatic" scenes. Kids were probably bored long before the halfway mark; I was. The songs by Harry Barris are vaguely pleasant but undistinguished. This is one of several sixties films the Stooges made when their careers were revived by television showings of their older short comedies.
Verdict: Not awful, but not the best of the Stooges, either. **1/2.
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