Cuckoos On A Choo Choo

Last night I saw the Three Stooges film, "Cuckoos On A Choo Choo," I believe for the first time. I don't remember ever seeing it before. And it seems like one I'd remember.

It was such an odd film, I immediately looked it up in The Three Stooges Scrapbook to see how many stars they gave it. And they didn't give it any! I don't know how many other films don't any stars in the book.

In the description it said it's considered the worst of the Three Stooges comedies. And I believe someone wrote that at Wikipedia as well. I saw a quote on Wiki from a guy on the comedy of the Stooges, that when they're cast as independent characters, not a team, they lose their whole comedy dynamic. That's definitely true. But in this particular episode, even though it started out that way, it seemed like they were acting a team about half the time.

I would guess it's considered bad because the story is just odd, there's certain inexplicable things about it, etc.

I was actually liking it in a weird way, because it was so absurd. The little music that plays when someone takes a drink out of the liquor bottle, the big canary, the relationship of the Stooges to the two female cast members, etc. It's just freaky.

The book also said the business of Larry on the train was supposed to be a parody of "A Streetcar Named Desire," with him doing some kind of Brando thing. I regret to say I've never seen that movie so I don't know about it. And that the canary was supposed to be a take-off of "Harvey." I don't know about that either, even though I've seen "Harvey." Shemp was drunk when he saw the canary. It seems like James Stewart was not drunk, but I could be mistaken. It didn't seem like much of a take-off.

It was strange. But I actually liked it, again because it was so absurd and not so plot driven. It was just weird. I was thinking, this would be a good one to watch over and over, to get yourself in a very strange mood. It might be good if you were getting ready to do some creative brainstorming.

Also in the book it said that Larry used to have a film of this one and he would show other people at the home he lived in, some kind of convalescent place. And that he fell asleep. The book meanly suggested that others would fall asleep too because the film is so bad. I don't think it's a snoozer. It's odd but also oddly compelling.

More Three Stooges In 3D

I read a paragraph in The Three Stooges Scrapbook about their two shorts in 3D, that Columbia didn't think they were that great.

But critics were less than enthusiastic about these new Stooges offerings, as was Columbia, and it abandoned the idea of producing additional 3-D shorts. [p. 83]

I must go back in time and change their minds. And if I can't succeed at that I will simply register a vain protest in the present moment. There's nothing wrong with the 3D shorts. I think it's quite cool to see the actual Three Stooges in 3D, since I never had seen them that way before. It's very cool, in my opinion, to see that extra depth, even if the Stooges were just standing around.

Now, do I think there needed to be quite as many gags of thrusting things at the audience? Like they were trying to accentuate the 3D thrills? Not really, but it's understandable, with the novelty of it. And it's not a complaint I have because even that I thought was OK.

Columbia doesn't appear to have appreciated the Three Stooges. But times have changed, all the principals are dead, and I'm willing to move on if they are!

The Three Stooges In 3D

I watched one of the two Three Stooges films that were shot in 3D. I didn't even know there were any shot in 3D till yesterday, so how's that for a surprise?

I had time this morning to watch one of them, which is called "Spooks," if I'm not mistaken.

It was great. The 3D is really good in places. Maybe my eyes aren't good, I don't know. In places it was hard for me to focus. But the arrangement of things and the gags, coming at the audience with a syringe, throwing pies, etc., all was very good.

Great job.

The New Three Stooges Is Here!

Today's the day, Nov. 10, for the new volume of the Three Stooges collected short films.

I rushed out and got it. Actually I went at a leisurely pace, but I got there on the first day. I haven't opened it yet but it says it comes with 3D glasses. I didn't know the Stooges filmed a couple of their shorts in 3D, but obviously they did.

I guess I don't know much about 3D. I didn't think there was any such thing as 3D with black and white movies. Showing what I know!

I don't think I'll get to them tonight.

Scrambled Brains

Nora - The Three Stooges

This is one of the funniest Three Stooges films I've seen, "Scrambled Brains." Shemp is in a sanitarium, hearing things and seeing things that aren't there. He actually is mentally disturbed and there's no other explanation given for it, such as someone playing tricks on him. When he's playing the piano, other hands beside his own appear. It's great.

I love it when he's leaving the sanitarium and he's saying goodbye. He says goodbye to the chair, to a marlin (a fish statue), and the fireplace, which has a hand that drops out and shakes Shemp's hand. I'm laughing just thinking about it.

At the sanitarium he meets Nora, a woman that he thinks is beautiful. She doesn't have the features traditionally thought to be beautiful, such as in beauty pageants. Moe and Larry notice this but not Shemp. To him her two teeth, separated by about an inch and a half empty space, are lovely pearls.

In the end she carries him off to get married, even though the Stooges have made a permanent enemy of Nora's father.

It's a very funny episode. I definitely love Shemp. I've watched all the Shemp episodes now up to this one, and this guy has gotten a bum rap over the years. He's an excellent, excellent Stooge in every way.

The Ghost Talks

I watched the first episode on the new Three Stooges DVD set, which is the sixth volume, I believe, "The Ghost Talks."

It's pretty good, and funny. I liked it anyway, but I think I was already in a good mood and predisposed in this case to laugh.

As to how the ghost talks, it's all done with wires being pulled from above. I've seen plenty of strings and wires in other Stooges films, but I think this one has to hold the record for the number of wires and frequency of their being pulled.

Since the ghost is talking about half the film, that means the wire is being pulled from above about half the episode! Then there's a bird in a skull, a frog up Shemp's pantleg, and I can't think of what else there was. With the wires clearly seen, making me wonder if these were as visible when the films were shown in the theater, or whether the DVD is so crystal clear that we're able to see things better. It's distracting, but I make allowances for it since of course that's the way the special effects needed to work.

There's so many wires I hope the Three Stooges don't get tangled up and choke to death.

It's confined to one set, I think. Maybe the ghost, while living, in a flashback is a different set. They're at an old castle as delivery/moving men and are supposed to transport a few objects out. They get involved in talking and drinking with the ghost in a suit of armor, and that's about it.

Haven't Got The DVD Yet

Maybe it's the recession, or maybe it's just the high cost of medicine and everything else -- plus a few anxieties over one thing or another ... but I haven't gotten the new Three Stooges DVD set yet.

I could go get it, I guess. I would survive, but I just haven't. I'm looking forward to seeing it, of course, but it'll still be there in a few days.

It's not like me to resist temptation ... although I do have the willpower to do it if I think it's necessary.

Half-Wit's Holiday

Well, I finished off the three pirates episode by the Three Stooges and "Half-Wit's Holiday." It's bittersweet to watch this one because we all know Curly had a stroke during the filming and so missed the last few scenes.

I've had this episode for a while. I have a VHS tape, one of the Columbia videos they made when they weren't really going for the sequential, collected works approach. So it's just "Half-Wit's Holiday and Other Nyuks," or something like that.

It's a good one, though, a remake (of sorts, in concept anyway) of an earlier film. Moe's wife had something to do with the concept, two guys arguing over Heredity vs. Environment, as for refining people and having them have some class. The Stooges are their guinea pigs and of course they're bound to fail in the refinement category every time, at least given enough time.

I like some of the stuff in this film, including their whole pretend meal, with the great sound effects, such as Curly supposedly eating olives, and they're going down, "glug glug glug." Everything else is cool in that scene.

As far as everything degenerating into another pie fight, that's not my favorite way to go out, but the Stooges must have thought it was riotous, since it seems they have numerous pie fights along the way. The weird thing about their pie fights is that there are still people (guests) standing around apparently oblivious to the fact that a pie fight is in progress. Then they turn, pull down their glasses, only to (surprise) get a pie in the face. It's funny, but it makes you wonder, how did these people not notice what was going on in the room they were in for the last five minutes?

I'm not such a Stooge-a-phile that I know all the ins and outs of Stooge lore. But I have read a little about Emil Sitka. He's in this film, and there's a touching thing (I think it's touching) in the Three Stooges Scrapbook about him shaking Curly's hand and saying he was playing the butler in this picture. Curly stands and says something nice to him, like, "Yes, sir, I see." And Sitka never really knew exactly what he meant by that, why he called him sir. I guess you needed to have been there!

There's another guy in the earlier films, and I thought HE was Emil Sitka. But he's definitely a different guy from this, and this is definitely Emil Sitka. The book says this was his first film with the Stooges. There's a cool picture, I believe it's in this Scrapbook, where Sitka was going to be the replacement for Larry in the very latest years. But it didn't happen beyond the picture.

OK, I've exhausted the Curly episodes and now (except for "Hold That Lion") he's all gone. Very sad to see him exit in his last scene from "Half-Wit's Holiday."

Suicide And The Three Stooges

I'm watching Vol. 5 of the collected short films of The Three Stooges, and I'm getting dangerously close to the end of Curly's tenure with the team. The episode I'm commenting about is "Rhythm and Weep," which is followed by two more Curly episodes. And he vanishes ¾ of the way through "Half Wit's Holiday," after he had a real life stroke. (Of course he makes a brief appearance in one other film, then that's it.)

So, my friends, that means it's going to be Shemp, Shemp, Shemp from there on... for quite a ways anyway. I think I'm ready for it.

I wanted to comment today on "Rhythm and Weep," since it has suicide as its theme much of the way through, the first half, I'd guess. I've just been reading the book by Kay Redfield Jamison on suicide, "Night Falls Fast" (I got it at Goodwill the other day), and of course now I'm seeing suicide everywhere I look ... including The Three Stooges!

I don't believe I've ever seen this episode before. Not unless it was when I was a little kid, because I definitely don't remember it. But there they are, supposed to be high up on a tall building, failures as actors, meaning to end it all by leaping to their deaths. They get up there and they meet three lovely actresses, also failures in show biz, who are also about to leap. When what to they hear? A guy up on the roof playing piano. So they dance and perform. (If you watch this episode when you're super tired, I'm sure it would be like a crazy dream, because it's one of the craziest episodes in places.)

The piano guy reveals that he is a producer, trying to get together a big production, and he hires the six performers before him. This leads to some stage dancing by the girls, then the Stooges dressed as women, with full make-up, looking quite seductive (ha ha). It's funny. Spoiler alert: The end is this, that the producer himself is crazy. Attendants come from a home to retrieve him and take him back, meaning the Stooges and the girls are once again performers. I can't remember if it ends with them threatening suicide again or not. Heck of an episode, except I could live without the production number by the girls.

Then in other suicide news, we have the report of Sylvia Plath's son in Alaska, now passed on.

So suicide is everywhere.

As for the book by Jamison, I'm up around page 80-something. It's gripping in places, including in the intro when she tells of a pact she had with a guy (both she and he were suicidal). They were to call one another if either felt suicidal, then get together and the one would try to talk the other out of it. But the pact didn't hold and the guy killed himself. The other gripping place is a chapter on a guy named Drew, in the Air Force or something, but he got some serious depression and other mental illness issues, and ended up killing himself. It's very interesting writing on a very important topic.

Jamison shows in a chart (this was published in 1999) that suicide is the number 2 cause of death of young women and number 4 cause of death for young men.

Charles Manson And The Three Stooges

According to "The Three Stooges Scrapbook," the Stooges went from a Metro contract to a Columbia contract 75 years ago a couple days ago, March 19, 1934. 75 years doesn't sound like a long time to me in relation to the Stooges, since they seem quite ancient. I love them and have all my life, all the parts I remember. But only 75 years since they got their Columbia contract? Guess so.

The book says they didn't have the name "Three Stooges" till June of '34. So we're not even 75 years on that one yet. I've been watching the episodes from the last volume (#5) that has Curly. He left the team, I believe it was 1946.

An unrelated anniversary coming up -- and a story at CNN that I was just reading -- concerns Charles Manson. Creepy. It was 40 years ago, but in August, so we have a ways to go, when he and the others committed their crimes. He's still in prison and they released a new picture of him. He's 74 years old now.

So put that with the Three Stooges information. Charles Manson was in diapers when the Stooges were doing their earliest Columbia films. Wikipedia says he was born Nov. 12, 1934. So back up nine months and Manson's parents were conceiving Charles in February 1934 just as the Three Stooges were in that transitional period with Ted Healy, and a month before the shooting schedule for "Woman Haters."

The Three Stooges

I've been watching some of the Three Stooges movies again. I have the various sets, the chronological DVD releases. Some of them I'm not a big fan of, in particular any that have to do with Nazis or the Japanese in WWII. Every Stooges film is dated in a sense, but these are especially so.

The one I really dislike is "They Stooge to Conga." It's the most violent episode, and I'm not that squeamish about normal Stooges violence, but this one is way beyond comfortable. And it involves the Nazis. Seeing Moe go through the wall and get injured (in reality he was injured doing this) isn't so bad, but having to see the spike go in his eye or head is too much.

"Busy Buddies" is an episode I've had. We used to record some of them off TV and watch them over and over. So I know exactly what to expect in it, and love it as an episode. My family has Curly's line "I drink coffee" as a catch phrase type of thing.

In "Crash Goes the Hash" there's something that bothers me. There's an actual reference to the Three Stooges in it! They show up to be butlers at someone's party and in all their acting up, a guy says, scolding them, that they remind him of the Three Stooges! I have a problem with that, because if the Three Stooges exist in the world at the same time as these three guys, wouldn't everyone notice that they're identical to them? And wouldn't it make these three guys very self conscious of their antics? So that's too circular for me, like one of those time machine conundrums.

I wonder why there aren't Three Stooges outtakes and alternate takes. The way a lot of their wilder antics went, they had to be set up and redone over and over to get them precisely right. Like when the dummy flies over the fence in "Busy Buddies," I have to believe that wasn't done in one take. I'd love to see some film of them actually making the films.