The Three Stooges Collection Vol. 6 (1949-1951) (2009) - By James L. Neibaur

Film Reviews: The Three Stooges Collection Vol. 6 (1949-1951) (2009) - By James L. Neibaur
Posted on Thursday, July 02, 2009 @ 04:39:31 Mountain Daylight Time by Duane

SONY is, so far, keeping their promise to release all 190 two reel comedies featuring The Three Stooges, and their latest is this volume of 24 films featuring Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Shemp Howard.

Shemp had been with the act on stage, but left to pursue a solo career. This is when Curly joined the group and, upon entering their long running series of Columbia short comedies in 1934, quickly became the most popular member of the trio. After suffering a stroke in 1946, Curly was forced to leave the act, and Shemp returned.

The previous batch of Stooge comedies, volume five, included the last of the Curly films and the first of those featuring Shemp. This sixth volume is all Shemp.

As the forties became the fifties and television increased in popularity, short subjects became scarce. The Stooges soldiered on, though, and remained popular attractions at the movies. The budgets were, by this time, threadbare, but the Stooges overshadowed that limitation by daring to explore some interesting, offbeat ideas. It can be argued that this period finds the Stooges at their most experimental. Not all of these experiments worked, but they were always interesting.

The first batch of shorts, from 1949, maintain the typical Stooges slapstick. There are a lot of laughs in comedies like Who Done It and Vagabond Loafers (the latter being a remake of Curly's 1941 short A Plumbing We Will Go). But the trio's last film that year, Punchy Cowpunchers, is a dead-on western satire that cleverly mocked every existing cliche, including the use of background music to enhance scenes. This rather brilliant effort paved the way for other experments that would follow.

In 1950, the Stooges investigated more possibilities. Love at First Bite is told almost entirely in flashback, allowing each Stooge to reminisce about a past love. Self Made Maids has the trio playing every role in the film, including themselves, their own sweethearts, their own children, and, in Moe's case, the girls' father. Neither of these efforts are among their best, but both are fascinating examples of the Stooges exploring other methods of comic presentation. Perhaps the best films from this year would include more typical slapstick comedies like Studio Stoops and A Snitch in Time. It should probably be noted that Three Hams on Rye actually features Danny Lewis, father of Jerry, in the highlight sequence.

Finally, 1951 has the Stooges dabbling with surrealism in the wildly funny Scrambled Brains (Shemp, suffering from hallucinations, keeps imagining he has a third hand while playing the piano in one outrageously funny scene). Other shorts are a bit more typical, including Merry Mavericks, another western satire, Three Arabian Nuts and The Tooth Will Out among the highlights. Interestingly enough, director Edward Bernds stated that the dentistry scenes in Tooth were originally shot for Merry Mavericks but proved too long. So they were excised and a new film was created.

One other interesting 1951 item is The Pest Man Wins, a remake of Curly's 1934 comedy Ants in the Pantry. Pest uses stock footage from the pie fights in two Curly shorts: In The Sweet Pie and Pie (1941) and Half Wits Holiday (1947). The blending of old footage with new was remarkably effective, and would be an even more blatant practice during the next several years when greater budget cuts necessitated some drastically creative measures.

This selection of Shemp-era Stooge comedies contains some of the wildest and funniest films in the long, timeless series. SONY is to be commended for continuing to release these lovingly remastered films, in their original release order, looking better than they have since first produced. Bring on volume seven!