The Three Stooges Story
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Movie Reviews of The Three Stooges Story
Movie Review: A must have for a stooge fan.
Summary: 5 Stars
Excellent and informative documentary on The Three Stooges. If only we were able to turn back time, what an era this must have been. I found this documentary a delight to watch. It was interesting to see Larry and Moe in their elderly years reflect on days gone by. There sad stories of the loss of their two brothers in Curly and Shemp, and their passion to just keep going and make people laugh. It brought me back to my childhood days. This is a must have DVD for any stooge fan because it gives you a behind the scene look at their rise to stardom. Hope you enjoy!
Michael, c/o Australia.
Movie Review: Great value especially for the unitiated
Summary: 4 Stars
I like my Stooges hard and heavy, fast and furious, and this documentary rocks! For Stooge-philes there's nothing new, save many rare stills and a few unfamiliar clips even this fan of nearly 50 years.
Downside: at the time of production, apparently only four Columbia shorts were available to cull from, and so it's the same ol' same ol', as strong as they are. Without the full catalogue, we have that treadmill effect, and lose the chance for alot of brilliant, actually dialogue-driven material. With all the crazy visuals and sound effects, some of the best comedy writing - in History! - is lost, and is clouded by some of the worst examples of unnecessary, unfunny violence ever captured on celluloid. The documentary adroitly points out that when the shorts finally made it to TV, parents were shocked by some of the bits involving hachets, hammers, and the like. And you know what? They were right...and so were the TV stations who went to work to trim off alot of garbage.
Having said that, let's state unequivocally that they were a fabulous team who were held back in many ways, by the tired, predicable schtick. And this program has too much of that banging around (from the pre-Columbia days before they worked with brilliant sound and editing technicians).
Alot of time is spent on Ted Healey here, and he of course was, or is reported to be, the first Stooge supervisor. His talent for oration and singing; his timing and stage presence was remarkable. He could almost perform at the level of W. C. Fields, as well. But he, too, was not the "writer", say, like Stan Laurel and Groucho Marx, etc. So his gifts were often guilded in gruesome stuff, where he appears somewhat sadistic. In short [no pun]...none too funny.
Perhaps less biographical data was needed on the main players - it's about time that the Stooges troupe got more attention: Symona Boniface, Christine MacIntire, et. al., were excellent. But then it goes back to the (surmised) availability of the material.
Kudos to the producer for *finally* mentioning that Curly made not one, but *two* cameos! Yes, the second one came in '49, and sadly, the only reported remnant is a single still used on a lobby card. I've been terribly disappointed that it seems that I am the only fan who is interested in learning alot more about that significant event - and naturally, to watch the actual deleted scene. Why would Columbia discard that?
I disagree with one reviewer who said that the writers, behind-the-scenes folks, had nothing interesting to say. Just the mention of the importance of the sound-effects man to their careers, is huge.
Still waitin' on "Malice In The Palace" (alternate take).
Movie Review: A pretty solid documentary
Summary: 4 Stars
While this documentary does jump around with the timeline a few times, doesn't seem to have been extraordinarily high budget, and has a lot of footage that's available on a bunch of other discs, overall it's pretty engrossing and informative. Through clips from their Columbia shorts, the MGM shorts they made with Ted Healy, the movies they made guest appearances in, television appearances they made in the final stretch of their career, and numerous interviews, the viewer gets a full picture of the Stooges as individuals, how their careers began and developed, what makes their comedy so timeless and endearing in spite of the violence, and their legacy. Along with the requisite familiar footage (such as overrepresentation from the 4 public domain shorts and 'Heavenly Daze,' which at one point was mistakenly believed to be public domain also) are also rarer clips, such as from the movies they made guest appearances in, their MGM shorts in the early Thirties (including one in early Technicolor), some of Shemp's solo films, and appearances on various television shows. Of particular value are all of the interviews, such as the ones with Emil Sitka (their frequent co-star) and Ed Bernds (one of their best directors), as well as interviews with Moe from the late Fifties and the early Seventies. Particularly priceless are the clips from his appearance on the Mike Douglas Show in the Seventies, where he recreates the old Niagara Falls skit and later gets a pie in the face from his wife in the audience. Larry's last recorded interview from 1973 is also featured. The Larry interview, while deeply informative and enjoyable, is also a bit distressing to watch because he looked old and sick, and his speech was a bit affected from the stroke he'd had a few years earlier. There's even an interview with Curly's second wife Elaine and their daughter Marilyn. There might be a bit of overreliance on clips to tell the story, but it's not as though the clips are being used to make up for nothing of value to say. Apart from the overreliance on clips, the only major flaws I could find with it are that they report a couple of urban legends as fact, some things don't go into as much detail as possible, and they got Curly's year of birth and date of death wrong. While I'd more highly recommend a documentary like 'The Men Behind the Mayhem,' this one has a lot of great information as well.Movie Review: Best Stooge documentary on dvd
Summary: 4 Stars
I own the A and E biography on Stooges and that is a great video, but its not released on dvd. This was a excellent documentary and I cant see how people can complain about it. The only problem I have was some of the timeline was out of place, but thats small details. Larry's last interview is a bit hard to watch, being a die hard Stooge fan. The dvd is a great, cheap pick up on Stooge history.Movie Review: Cheaply made documentary
Summary: 2 Stars
...This DVD is a collection of recycled stooge interview/movie/short clips with an original narrative track. There is NO original footage. Often, old film clips that have nothing to do with the stooges are inserted as filler material. In fact, the actual stooge clips they do use are repeated as many as 5 times. Audio quality also leaves a lot to be desired. The narrator sounds as though he's reading from inside a public restroom.
I've bought several stooge DVDs...They're ALL cheap, repetitive and have poorly designed menus.
The only reason this DVD rates 2 stars is because it does contain some interesting information for those who are not already up on Stooge history.
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