SNOW WHITE AND THE THREE STOOGES

Stooges

SNOW WHITE AND THE THREE STOOGES (1961). Director: Walter Lang.

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.

THE OUTLAWS IS COMING

Adam West and the Stooges: DeRitas, Howard and Fine

THE OUTLAWS IS COMING (1965). Director: Norman Maurer.

In 1871 a group of outlaws want to slaughter the buffalo to send the Indians on the warpath for their own nefarious purposes. Kenneth Cabot (Adam West of Batman) is sent out to Wyoming with three associates (Larry Fine, Moe Howard, and Joe DeRita) to save the Buffalo from extinction. There they run into Annie Oakley (Nancy Kovack of Diary of a Madman), who actually does the shootin' attributed to Kenneth, as well as bad guys Rance Rodan (Don Lamond) and Trigger Mortis (Mort Mills of The Name of the Game is Kill), who make Kenneth the sheriff and the Stooges his deputies -- with the average life expectancy of about a day. The Outlaws is Coming is pretty silly stuff, geared primarily to children despite its violence and gun play, but it does have some inspired moments. There's the bit when the Stooges are forced to drink a Tarantula Fizz (Tiny Brauer is amusing as their bartender), and a clever business when the boys pour glue into the guns and holsters of all of the outlaws as they sleep, hoping to head off their own slaughter. DeRita and Fine make comical drag queens when they accidentally enter the room of some show gals instead of the outlaws. Annie Oakley has a cat fight with Calamity Jane, and Henry Gibson plays an Indian, but he isn't especially funny, no surprise there. Emil Sitka is also not funny as an Indian chief. At 88 minutes the picture is too long.

Verdict: Elvis the skunk is in this too! **.

THE THREE STOOGES IN ORBIT

Larry Fine, Moe Howard, Joe DeRita

THE THREE STOOGES IN ORBIT (1962). Director: Edward Bernds.

"The arrow's pointing half-way -- I don't know if it's half full or half empty!"

Needing a place to stay, the Three Stooges (Larry Fine, Moe Howard, and Joe DeRita) answer an ad placed by a scientist named Danforth (Emil Sitka). Danforth has invented a kind of combination sub-tractor-copter-spaceship which hardly looks like it could get off the ground but at one point shoots the boys into orbit. A handsome Air Force man, Captain Tom Andrews (Edson Stroll of McHale's Navy) comes to look at the professor's invention, but spends more time looking over his daughter, Carol (Carol Christensen). Then there are a couple of Martians, who resemble Universal monsters, hovering about and planning an attack on the earth. A sub-plot has the boys being told that their cartoon show will be canceled unless they come up with a new approach and arrive at the studio by a certain time. The Stooges are fine, but even they need decent material, and even kids would probably find this a little too silly. Sitka isn't funny at all, so his casting is strange (even stranger is that he later became one of the stooges after Fine's death), Strangely, Sitka reminds one of Dustin Hoffman! Many jokes are repeated too often.

Verdict: Good-natured if really stupid. **.