01/07/08: WOMAN HATERS (Archie Gottler, 1934)
I’m virtually a beginner when it comes to The Three Stooges: I’d seen a few of their films – and episodes from the animated series – as a kid (this short being one of them, incidentally) but not enough to rank them judiciously in the pantheon of classic comedy.
Anyway, this has been advertised as “a musical novelty” – influenced by the work of Ernst Lubitsch, no doubt – with all dialogue written in verse! In essence, it lies somewhere between Laurel & Hardy (with the train setting recalling BERTH MARKS [1929] in particular) and The Marx Bros. – but emerging, in the long run, as less sympathetic than either. The gang joins the titular club but Larry, practically blackmailed into marriage, attempts to keep his status from pals Moe and Curley – but can’t, because his spouse turns out to be a flirt who has her eyes on them as well! Walter Brennan appears briefly as the train conductor.
I have to say that the slap-happy antics of the comic trio gets tiresome after a while. To be honest, I wonder how I’ll be able to stick the relentless display of such childish behavior through 19 Stooges shorts I’ve got scheduled (given that I’ve just acquired a copy of the official Columbia 2-Disc collection)…
01/08/08:
PUNCH DRUNKS (Lou Breslow, 1934)
Pretty much on the same level of WOMAN HATERS (1934), though without the rhyming dialogue; ironically, the style of comedy seen here seems like a dry run for later Abbott & Costello efforts (with the comical prizefighting bout recalling that duo’s 1951 meeting with The Invisible Man)! Again, The Stooges consider female companionship as irresistible but essentially intrusive; Moe slaps his buddies around so often that one wonders whether anyone got hurt during the making of these films! An interesting twist here is that Curly’s combative skill is triggered by the playing of “Pop Goes The Weasel”; predictably, Larry’s playing of the song on his violin is made impossible during the decisive fight when Curly falls on top of him from the ring – thus causing Larry to run out of the arena to search for possible replacements (first coming up with a radio and then a truck fitted with a loudspeaker, which he drives through the walls of the building)!
01/09/08: MEN IN BLACK (Raymond McCarey, 1934)
This Oscar-nominated Three Stooges short was possibly a spoof on the Clark Gable hospital drama MEN IN WHITE (1934). The insane comedy style of the film is pretty much influenced by The Marx Bros. – but actually anticipates their own assault on the medical profession in A DAY AT THE RACES (1937)! The Stooges go to their designated operating rooms via horses, racing-cars and the like; the operation on their own boss sees them using an electric drill and then stitching him up with all the various instruments of the profession still inside! As ever, the comic trio fall back too often on slapping each other around (not to mention fooling around with some girl, in this case a dumb nurse); actually, the best gag revolves around the glass on the boss’ office door (which is smashed every time our heroes leave his company, since they’re constantly being called to explain their unethical behavior – seeing them coming one more time, the janitor who’s forever replacing the glass anticipates them by breaking it himself!). Incidentally, both director McCarey and screenwriter Felix Adler worked contemporaneously on the (more sympathetic but no less havoc-ridden) films of Laurel & Hardy.
01/11/08:
THREE LITTLE PIGSKINS (Raymond McCarey, 1934)
With this fourth Three Stooges short, I feel like they’re growing on me as I liked it quite a bit! Racketeer Walter Long (a great Laurel & Hardy foil) needs players who can be bought for a fixed game he’s organizing. His moll (a young Lucille Ball) and her companions meet The Stooges dressed in football gear – the boys are down on their luck, so they accept a job advertising for a football team – and, mistaking them for star players, bring them home. After the initial misconception about the men’s presence in Long’s apartment – leading to a delightful chase involving a base-less dumb waiter – The Stooges find themselves in a football stadium trying to make head or tails of the game, to the chagrin of the sinister-looking gangster! The short’s football craziness and the hijinks in the apartment are clearly inspired by HORSE FEATHERS (1932), one of The Marx Bros.’ greatest vehicles.
01/11/08:
HORSES' COLLARS (Clyde Bruckman, 1935)
This is another wonderful Three Stooges short, despite the meaningless title. Here, the boys are Pinkerton detectives sent out West to help an innocent girl being bullied by a ruffian – a premise which actually anticipates Laurel & Hardy’s classic WAY OUT WEST (1937), and even includes a similar scene in which The Stooges attempt to retrieve an important document from the villain’s safe! Gags include the boys playing tough guys at the saloon – where they inadvertently set the sheepskin trousers of the baddie’s henchman on fire – and taking to the dance-floor in a ruse to get at the piece of paper jealously guarded by the heavy inside his wallet. Still, the best moments of the film involve Curley going into a raging fit – a similar affliction to the one he had in PUNCH DRUNKS (1934) – at the sight of a mouse (asked why, Moe replies “That’s because his father was a rat!”) which he’s only able to get out of by being force fed a piece of cheese (“Moe, Larry…cheese!”).