Cheap The Three Stooges: Curly Classics (DVD) (Ray McCarey, Edward Bernds, Lou Breslow) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Three Stooges: Curly Classics

Early Stooge Madness
The "Curly Classics" DVD focuses primarily on the Three Stooges' earliest Columbia two-reelers from 1934. Regardless of uneven material and revolving directors, Moe, Larry and Curly find their slapstick niche in "Punch Drunks," "Three Little Pigskins" and the Oscar-nominated "Men in Black." However, the highlights are two later releases that display the Stooges at full comic throttle: "A Plumbing We Will Go" (1940) and "Micro-Phonies" (1945). The weak link is "Woman Haters" -- a misguided "musical novelty" that emerged as the Stooges' inauspicious Columbia debut. "Curly Classics" remains an enjoyable compilation, but not the total knockout it should have been.

An interesting selection
Since the plots of these shorts have already been described by a number of other reviewers, I'll just give my opinions on them and on the DVD overall. <
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>'Woman Haters' is one of those shorts that most fans either love or hate. I didn't care for it that much the first time I saw it, but I do agree that it does get a little better with repeated viewings. It probably would have been a better film if the entire thing hadn't been spoken in rhyme; that device gets old and tired after about a minute. Although I'm confused as to why it was seen fit to be included here. It's not really a Curly classic because Larry is the one who gets the most lines and the leading role! <
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>'Punch Drunks' is a big step up and should have been the first short they released at Columbia. Though it's one of their very early ones, it has a great plot and lots of great comedy. Until about sometime in 1935, they didn't really have their formula down pat yet, but this is one of the early ones that shines and deserves to be called a classic. <
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>I actually think 'Men in Black' is somewhat overrated. It's a really odd short, and there are moments of humor, but nothing I found really that hilarious. I fail to see why this would get an Oscar nomination and is considered by many people to be one of their best. The problem might be that the comedy style is all over the map, like they weren't yet sure what type of humor they wanted to do--verbal, physical, or just plain absurd humor. If this weren't one of their very first shorts, it probably wouldn't have such an important reputation. Although that doesn't mean I think it's one of their worst shorts (far from it). <
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>'Three Little Pigskins,' their fourth short, is another of their very early classics, though taken in comparison to all of their other work, I wouldn't necessarily consider it one of their all-time classics. There's a good solid plot and lots of good humor, and I liked seeing the great character actor Walter Long and how the opening scene reflected the time period of the Great Depression. I also noticed that the middle section of this short borrows from the earlier 1928 Laurel and Hardy short 'We Faw Down.' Once again we see a lovely young lady's hat being blown off of her head and underneath a car, and when our hapless heroes go to retrieve it, they get soaked by a passing street sweeper and are invited back to the home of the woman and her friends. While they're waiting around for their clothes to dry and are wearing clothes given to them by the women, and flirting with them, the ladies' mobster boyfriends show up. The ending is kind of in media res, but everything that came before was so good it doesn't matter that much. <
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>'Micro-Phonies' and 'A-Plumbing We Will Go' are bona fide classics and really deserve their place on this collection. They both have strong plots and lots of great slapstick. They were made at a point in their career when they had long developed their screen personalities and had been at their creative peak for some time. <
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>Overall, this is a pretty good collection, but as aforementioned, I am curious as to why their first four shorts were included as Curly classics. At this point, he hadn't really perfected his screen persona yet (such as in how you can hear him talking in a voice closer to his real off-camera voice instead of the high-pitched baby-like voice he later developed), and you can also tell the other two hadn't gotten their own screen characters down pat either. It seems like it would have made more sense to have included shorts from a wider time range instead of having their first four shorts (all from 1934) and then having the other two be from 1940 and 1945. It's a little curious as to why some of these shorts were included on here, but generally speaking, it is a collection I would recommend getting.