THE THREE STOOGES featurettes

THE THREE STOOGES featurettes.

Most baby boomers remember the Three Stooges from their TV show when they were older (and different) men and had done the same old routines about ten thousand times. Years before, in the forties, when they were comprised of Moe and Jerry/Curly Howard (Shemp Howard came later) and Larry Fine, the Stooges had done much more interesting short features that were shown in movie theaters. AMC showed quite a number of these on New Year's Day, and while it must be said that the Stooges should only be taken in short doses, some of their old shorts are quite funny. In Hoi Polloi the boys try to turn into society types; the best scene has them imitating their pretty dance instructress who goes into all sorts of physical conniptions when a bee goes down her dress! They masquerade as psychiatrists at a society party in Three Sappy People and discover that a kindly widow has oil on her property in Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise. The boys manage to fix up a hotel but come afoul of mice and other things on opening night in Loco Boy Makes Good, and are ice men turned disastrous chefs in An Ache in Every Steak. As professorial impostors at a girls school, they have the lasses singing a dopey "Alphabet Song" in Violent is the Word for Curly. Curly becomes a wrestler in Grips, Grunts and Groans. In Woman Haters, Larry joins a misogynous club only to discover he has to get married. (The entire story is told in verse and song, but despite this clever aspect it all becomes quite tiresome after awhile.)

Three of the best Stooges shorts are: If a Body Meets a Body in which Curly Q. Link thinks he's inherited money from an uncle and winds up in a haunted mansion with assorted dead bodies; A-Plumbing We Will Go, in which the boys completely demolish a mansion when they try to fix a simple leak in the pipes; and especially Micro-Phonies in which Curly in a wig is mistaken for a grand opera singer and must perform with his buddies in front of a crowd. You have to see the Three Stooges lip-syncing to the sextet from Lucia di Lammermoor to believe it! Hilarious! Fine and the Howard boys were all gifted comic actors. The Stooges' full-length movies include Rockin' in the Rockies, the dreadful Gold Raiders, The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze, and the amusing Have Rocket, Will Travel.

Verdict: They're not the Marx Brothers or Laurel and Hardy but they can be inventive and funny. ***.

THE THREE STOOGES

THE THREE STOOGES: From Amalgamated Morons to American Icons. Michael Fleming. Foreword by Mel Gibson. Official and Authorized. Doubleday; 1999.

This illustrated coffee table book takes an exhaustive look at the careers and lives of the Three Stooges, which actually consisted of several men over the years. Originally they were three brothers, but Larry Fine was not related, and took over for Shemp Howard (who later came back into the fold). The trio started out as stooges for comic Ted Healy and there are chapters detailing Healy's career both before and after his association with the Stooges, who outgrew him. The Stooges originally made comedy shorts that played in theaters, many of which were quite funny (while others were stinkers). When these played on television, there was a literal and figurative Stooge revival -- the fellows wound up being put in big-screen movies such as Snow White and the Three Stooges and Have Rocket, Will Travel, with mixed results. In any case they had a whole new audience of kids of all ages. The author argues that the Stooges are almost exclusively a male phenomenon, that women just don't dig the Stooges, but I think that's a generalization that might not hold water (no matter what Mel Gibson, who wrote the introduction, may think). Fully half the book is devoted to synopses of all of the Stooges shorts -- and there were many -- but it's more fun to watch (some of) them than to read about them. Still, this is a must-have for serious Stooge fans.

Verdict: Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk -- For all things Stooge. ***.

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. **.

BRIDELESS GROOM

Voice Professor Shemp Howard councils Ms. Dinklemeyer

BRIDELESS GROOM (1947). Director: Edward Bernds.

Before the Three Stooges got their television program, they made many short comedies that were shown in theaters. These were often funny and inventive and constitute the stooges' golden age. In Brideless Groom, Professor Shemp Howard is a voice coach with an impossibly shrill and awful pupil named Miss Dinkelmeyer (Dee Green), who is in love with him. He suggets that she "gargle with razor blades." It develops that Shemp will inherit half a million bucks if he gets married by six o'clock, but he ignores the nuptially-anxious Dinkelmeyer in favor of more attractive ladies who have no desire to tie the knot with him -- until they learn about the loot! Larry Fine and Moe Howard try to assist in the search for a willing bride, and there's a frenetic climax when money-hungry dames converge on the groom just before the ceremony and almost turn into literal battle-axes! The boys are in top form in this very funny 17 minute short.

Verdict: Zany antics with the stooges.

SPACE MASTER X-7

SPACE MASTER X-7 (1958). Director: Edward Bernds. 

Dr. Pommer (Paul Frees) experiments with a piece of "blood rust," his name for the red fungus that covers the planet Mars and was brought back by a ship called "Space Master X-7,", and discovers to his regret that it's even more dangerous than he imagined. Laura (Lyn Green), the mother of his son, comes to visit and walks off unaware that she's carrying fungal spores. Agents John Hand (Bill Williams) and Joe Rattigan (Robert Ellis) begin a desperate search for the woman, finding traces of the fungus -- which sort of resembles a glistening, moving carpet -- wherever she's been. The climax occurs on a plane where the fungus begins to break out of the cargo hold. An amusing scene has the passengers reacting to the fungus as it covers the plane windows. Thomas Browne Henry of Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, Blood of Dracula, and many others, is in the cast as a Professor, and Moe Howard of the 3 Stooges is a helpful cab driver! The acting is more than adequate, and Frees has a better and bigger role than usual; he's excellent. This might have amounted to more if it had a bigger budget and more imaginative direction, but it has its moments. 

Verdict: Creepy in spite of itself. **1/2.

ROCKIN' IN THE ROCKIES

ROCKIN' IN THE ROCKIES (1945). Director: Vernon Keays.

Shorty Williams (Moe Howard) takes over his cousin's ranch when he's out of town and creates a shambles with his pals Larry (Larry Fine) and Curly (Curly Howard) -- yes, it's The Three Stooges -- two aspiring singers named June (Mary Beth Hughes) and Betty (Gladys Blake), and the four Hoosier Hotshots, who also want a shot in show biz. Jay Kirby plays cousin Rusty, who's mighty perturbed to find a whole house-load of uninvited guests at his ranch. A few snappy musical numbers -- including the catchy title tune -- are interspersed with the Stooges' amusing hijinks. No world beater, perhaps, but in its own limited way it's certainly good-natured fun.

Verdict: A must for Stooge fanatics. **1/2.