The Three Stooges [DVD]

Features

• Type: DVD
• Studio: Echo Bridge Home Entertainment
• Language(s): english
• Director(s): Two DVD Set
• Actor(s): Larry Fine, Moe Howard, Curly Howard, Shemp Howard

Three Stooges ~ Vol. 1-2 Nyuks x 10 includes 10 tapes: All the World's a Stooge with "Grips, Grunts, and Groans" and "3 Dumb Clucks"; A Bird in the Head with "Dizzy Pilots" and "Three Sappy People"; Three Little Pirates with "Uncivil War Birds" and "Back to the Woods"; A Plumbing We Will Go with "Violent Is the Word for Curly" and "Punch Drunks"; So Long Mr. Chumps with "Three Loan Wolves" and "Even as IOU"; Rhythm and Weep with "Back from the Front" and "The Three Troubledoers"; What's the Matador? with "Boobs in Arms" and "Mutts to You"; Healthy, Wealthy, and Dumb with "Disorder in the Court" and "Pardon My Scotch"; Micro-Phonies with "Uncivil Warriors" and "Three Missing Links"; Idiots De Luxe with "I Can Hardly Wait" and "Idle Roomers." This boxed set of 10 tapes offers 30 Curly shorts from the long-running Columbia series. It can be used as an excellent representative sampling of how Curly, Larry, and Moe made a fortune for their studio (although their share was quite low) or as the perfect first step toward owning the entire series. The years range from 1934 ("Punch Drunks") to 1946 ("Three Little Pirates")--their 2nd and their 96th short respectively--and one might wish they were in chronological order. Curly's illness sadly shows in his last features before Shemp took his place in the 98th short. Still, such a wide time period, out of order or not, allows us to consider how much of their material and basic situations were recycled. Curly is always the one who goes berserk at the scent of a particular perfume, the sound of a certain tune, or the sight of a mouse. In only one episode, "I Can Hardly Wait," is Moe the one inflicted with a malady (nervous collapse), and in a plot reminiscent of Laurel and Hardy's Saps at Sea, everything conspires to make him worse. Often the plots are so weak that in some cases, a goodly percent of the 18 minutes is spent on a single routine, like trying to get Curly out of a tight sweater. But one does not watch these films for plot, logic, or anything other than the sheer fun of seeing three seasoned professionals making their audiences laugh. The videos are excellent, except for some scratch lines in the last minutes of Three Little Pirates, which does not exist, apparently, in an unblemished print. --Frank Behrens