Short Years: 1936, 1947, and 1948
Genre: Comedy
Directors: Preston Black, Edward Bernds, Jules White
Starring: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard, Shemp Howard, Christine McIntyre, Emil Sitka, Bud Jamison, Vernon Dent
Introductions By: Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett
Shorts Featured: "Disorder in the Court," "Sing a Song of Six Pants," "Malice in the Palace," "Brideless Groom"
The Shorts
*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THESE SHORTS UNRIFFED*
I might be that one guy with a blog nobody reads on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, but would you believe that as far as comedy goes I'm a bigger fan of The Three Stooges? They're probably second only to The Simpsons as far as my pop culture obsessions go. Why do I choose to blog about riffing instead? Because I love finding weird and obscure movies that nobody cares about anymore, and film riffing is a highly entertaining gateway into the bottom of the barrel. Everyone has an opinion on The Godfather or Citizen Kane, and while I love both and don't wish to take away from those who enjoy spending time analyzing and dissecting films of that sort, I find much juicier and entertaining conversations can be had at the expense of Manos or Birdemic.
I actually have a few files worth of writing devoted to The Three Stooges and The Simpsons. Maybe one day I'll post them here or elsewhere. But for now, this is where my heart is.
But not to digress further from the subject, here we have one of the most enduring comedy teams of their generation. I owe a lot to the Stooges. My love of their slapstick comedy as well as Lucille Ball acted as a gateway to my passion for classic comedy. If it weren't for my curiosity of the time period I probably would not have veered into the works of The Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello, and Laurel and Hardy. If it weren't for my enjoyment of these groups I might not have ventured backward even further into the work of silent films, and finding wonderful pantomime genius in Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd. It is rooted in these silly routines that I branched a foundation for a love of classic cinema from the 20's, 30's, 40's, and 50's that's still growing and evolving within me today. Even if the Stooge routines aren't for you, you can't take that away from me.
These four particular shorts come from the catalog of Columbia Pictures, who had a fairly popular short subject division that spanned from the early 30's to the late 50's. The Three Stooges worked there since 1934 straight until the end, and were Columbia's longest running series with 190 shorts. To give context on just how massive this output was, Columbia's second longest series starred Andy Clyde, who made 73 short subjects. The four shorts featured on this disc are quite possibly the most widely circulated of their output, due to an error in copyright renewal. For decades these four shorts have been in the public domain, and just about every independent label interested in bargain DVDs has released them on home video.
We start off with what I largely consider my favorite Three Stooges short, Disorder in the Court. This short features Moe, Larry, and Curly as witnesses for the defense in a murder case. While telling their side of what happen, the trio throw the courtroom in a state of disarray. This is fairly standard Three Stooges scenario, which provides a setting in which order is vital and let the Stooges blaze through it like a hurricane. The setting is largely why this short works, because everything around the Stooges can be their straight man, and they take advantage of it.
Despite the dismay of the Film Crew at discovering that Disorder in the Court is the only Curly short they'll be watching, we delightfully dive into the Shemp era with Sing a Song of Six Pants next, which sees the Stooges as dry cleaners who wind up with the coat of a gangster and the combination to a safe he wants back. The shorts of the Shemp era often had the Stooges matching wits with gangsters, often ending with a chase scene where the trio comes out on top. Sing a Song of Six Pants is a fairly solid example of this formula, with a lot of laughs at the Stooges running their own business in the meantime.
Up next is Malice in the Palace, probably the weakest of the quartet of shorts but still well worth watching. This short has the Stooges as a group of waiters in the Middle East who go after a supposedly cursed gem taken by the shady Emir of Shmow. While the climax of the short is nothing to write home about, the first half of the short is outstanding. Larry steals the show as the chef who patrons believe has fed them dog and cat meat. It's one of the greatest misunderstandings the Three Stooges have ever done.
While this short actually came earlier in the Stooges run, this disc closes out with Brideless Groom, a Stooge-ified remake of Buster Keaton's Seven Chances (and as much as I love Keaton, the Stooges did it better). This short has Shemp being named the heir of half a million dollars, but only if he weds by six o'clock that evening. The mad rush for a bride brings some of the Stooges finest work, as well as some of the finest work by their regular co-stars. Main Stooge dame Christine McIntyre has a highlighting moment halfway through, as Shemp tries to make his proposition but she won't let him get a word in edgewise. Emil Sitka also steals the show as an ill-fated Justice of the Peace, coining his immortal catch phrase "Hold hands, you love birds" (a phrase that Sitka admitted many Stooge fans have asked him to say at their own weddings).
Are these shorts overplayed? Yes. Are they still funny? Abso-fucking-lutely. While I can name a few shorts that I would exchange with Malice in the Palace and Sing a Song of Six Pants, the truth is that public domain lucked out with these shorts because there isn't a bad one here and they are all immensely rewatchable. So much so that when I buy a public domain disc I can't be angry at watching these four shorts again, and believe me I have quite a few copies of these ones. It's a great starter's kit to the Three Stooges. Admittedly they aren't for everyone, but if they're for you you'll know it about five minutes into Disorder in the Court.
The Intros
I debated myself for a while as to whether or not I should include these Three Stooges discs on my website, since technically they are not riffs. But I consider my little blog a fansite of the people who work on Mystery Science Theater and their various projects, and this Three Stooges disc is a part of Legend's colorization line that Mike contributed to, which pushes me to include it. Plus, the guys from Rifftrax mingling with the Three Stooges? How could I resist?
I'm a bit relieved it's not a riff, because riffing comedy is tricky business. These shorts are so hyper and funny on their own, any commentary made on them would be pointless. However, the intros are almost like host segments in a way, so the spirit of MST is still in this material. And mockery is made of the shorts through these clips, mostly at the expense of Shemp.
"The thing about a Shemp episode is that it's kind of like the end of a long summer day and you think you're going to get ice cream but instead somebody hits you in the groin with a shovel."
The Shemp segment is the highlight of the bunch, giving us some colorful whining about watching a Shemp short when there are so many good Curly ones that aren't in public domain. But there is a bit of a problem to the idea of this joke being made, because three of the four public domain shorts are Shemp-era. This puts a bit of a damper on the fun spirit of the disc because it takes most of the material here and they wipe their ass with it in one swoop early on. But the Shemp heavy-ness of the offerings is the elephant in the room when Curly is the most popular Stooge by far, so to have some sort of commentary on it is pretty much demanded.
The rest of the intros are mostly passable. I enjoyed the segment about the warning signs when Moe is about to strike, while Kevin dressing in drag and Mike's Larry doll drown. There's a cute product placement in the first intro, where Mike plugs the Reefer Madness DVD, but Kevin tosses it out because "There is some guy talking over it."
The intros are cute, but if you haven't seen them you aren't missing much. The real star of the show here are the Three Stooges, so if you have a love for both the classic trio and the riffing trio, this is a fun disc to have in your collection. If you're only a fan of one over the other, then it's an easy pass. Personally I'm tempted to give this disc my highest marks just because I love the Stooges as much as I do, but the intros are only mixed to positive bringing the experience down a peg.
Good
The DVD
The Three Stooges in Color is part of Legend Films colorization line of DVDs on public domain material. The shorts themselves look good, but are a step beneath the remastered efforts Sony put forth on their Three Stooges Collection box sets, but since Sony had access to the original film elements this was to be expected. The colorization is fine, though a bit ostentatious in places. I'd say the color feels the most natural in Brideless Groom (or at least it's the least distracting). The intros with Mike, Kevin, and Bill are filmed in widescreen but presented in full frame, and look a bit compressed.
Special features include black and white versions of each short (my preference, personally) and a comparison between Legend's prints and other prints of the same shorts on the market. There are also colorized trailers for The Three Stooges in Color, A Christmas Wish, Carnival of Souls, Night of the Living Dead, and Reefer Madness.
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