Product Details

• Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard, Mildred Harris, Kenneth Harlan
• Directors: Del Lord
• Writers: Felix Adler
• Producers: Jules White
• Format: Black & White, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• VHS Release Date: January 28, 1997
• Run Time: 18 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302814103
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #286,634 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

"Movie Maniacs" (1936), the Three Stooges' 13th Columbia short, is one of their better efforts. It spoofs movies and, as Moe puts it, the thousands who know nothing about making them. It also gives us a wonderful chance to see the vaudeville routine with Curly in drag and Larry as the debonair suitor, not to mention Moe's method of teaching acting by having Larry and Curly manipulate a couple of actors like hand puppets. But like so many of their other shorts, the weak ending has them simply running away when found out to be phonies.

"Dutiful But Dumb" (1941, short #54) has a feeble plot, but it does have the classic confrontation of Curly with a very fresh oyster stew and also being a one-man band inside of a radio. In this film, he takes on the Harpo Marx ability to come up with a convenient, albeit outlandish, prop from out of his jacket. When a firing squad officer grants Curly a last smoke, he produces a two-foot cigar. When trapped within the radio, he happens to have all sorts of musical instruments to draw upon.

In "Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise" (1939, #42), Curly enjoys the supernatural power to have his wishes granted in a perfectly ordinary (though highly coincidental) way. This short has an actual plot, with a beginning, middle, and end, as the boys try to help a widow and her three lovely daughters regain a deed to the oil-filled land she had just sold to the baddies at $50 an acre.

Because these shorts are presented out of chronological order, you will hear the same joke in two of them. Moe: "What's your name, so I can tell your mother?" Curly: "My mother already knows my name." --Frank Behrens

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Some more proof of why the Three Stooges are priceless, January 18, 2004

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: 3 Stooges: Movie Maniacs [VHS] (VHS Tape)

For those who want a bit more than a television commercial to understand why the Three Stooges are priceless, the trio of comedy shorts the boys made for Columbia collected on this videotape can help make the case:

"Movie Maniacs" is a short from 1936 that starts with the Stooges stowing away on a train bound for Hollywood. There are a couple of good routines involving making breakfast and ironing their clothes before the boys arrive at Carnation Pictures are mistaken for studio executives. This means that they can provide their collective 2 cents with regards to the love scene being filmed by a director (named Swinehardt). The result is that everybody quits and Curly has to play the female lead romanced by Larry, while Moe directs. Somehow this classic ends up with the boys being chased by a lion in a car, which makes perfect sense in the world of the Stooges.

"Dutiful But Dumb" is a 1941 effort with a movie connection in that the Stooges are photographers for "Whack" magazine, out to get a picture of movie star Percival De Pusyter and his new bride. This does not go well, which is why the boys end up in Vulgaria, where shooting photographs gets you shot by a firing squad. Fortunately Curly knows about a rule of international law regarding last smokes. The best bit in this one has Curly crawling inside a large radio to broadcast the news, but his encounter with the oyster in his oyster soup is almost as good. The bits have little to do with the plot, but that is par for the course with these two-reelers.

"Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise" is a 1939 short where the boys start off working on a farm for food. This one actually has a running gag in that every time Curly wishes for something, it comes to pass. This gets all mixed up with the fact that some crooks are buying land from poor farmers who do not know that their land sits on oil. The Stooges come to the rescue of a kindly window and her three daughters (April, May, and June), and the rescuing actually works out. Not a classic, but close.

Overall, this trio of Stooges comedies makes for one of the better video collections in this series. You have one classic and two above average efforts from the Moe-Larry-Curly period, and several great bits by Curly, which is always a plus.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the stooges best tapes, May 13, 2003

By 

Darian Dennison (Walla Walla, WA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: 3 Stooges: Movie Maniacs [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Movie Maniacs (1936)
The boys are sleeping in a freight boxcar on their way to Hollywood to be actors, the scenes when they're having breakfast is hilarious and Larry ironing Moe's pants is priceless, then the boys arrive in Hollywood and they try to sneak in the studio but get thrown out and Moe comes up with the idea to get inside, then the studio boss (Bud Jamison) mistakes the boys as actors and they wreak havoc inside the studio and the studio boss finds out that the other actors couldn't come in time and he finds out that the stooges are frauds and the boys flee, great short. 4.5/5

Dutiful But Dumb (1941)
The stooges are photographers and their boss sends the stooges to Bulgaria (where camera's are prohibited and those who break the law are sentenced to death) and the boy's get caught and are sentenced to death, they're a bunch of timeless scenes when Curly hid behind the stereo and plays the harmonica and gets caught and the when Curly orders an oyster stew and the oyster spits soup at Curly and the boys get carried away by the guards, another great short. 4.5/5

Oily to Bed, Oily to Bed (1939)
The boys are looking for something to eat and Curly wishes something and Moe slaps him cause Curly was thinking only for himself, then the boys enter inside the farm and the farmer askes the boys what they were doing and Moe tells him that they're looking for something to eat and the farmer tells the boys to go saw some wood and they ended up destroying the saws and the farmer tells the boys to go load up the wagon to pay off the saws, then the boys leave the barn and Curly wishes that they had a car and sure enough he gets his wish and the ask an older lady to fix them something to eat and after dinner, the boys offer to work for her and she tells them that the pump needs fixin' and the boys offer to do it and Curly wishes that he could settle down with a bunch of beautiful girls and again he gets his wish, then the boys find out that the old lady was swindled and they decide to go after the crooks and at the end, they save the old lady's farm and Curly wishes that they can get married and sure enough, he gets his wish and Curly tries to kiss his girl and winds up kissing MOE!
Another classic short, 4.5 stars

This is one of the best stooge tapes out there and if you're a casual stooge fan, then you'll love watching this tape, also recommended is An Ache in Every Stake, Healthy Wealthy and Dumb and Whoops I'm an Indian.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Three classics!, February 16, 2000

By 

Jon Graham (Rochester, Vermont USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 3 Stooges: Movie Maniacs [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This tape is a good value for stooge fans. All three of the shorts are (in my opinion) among their strongest efforts and each short contains priceless moments (such as Curly's battle with an oyster in a bowl of oyster stew in "Dutiful but Dumb"). Even if the quality was more uneven, this tape would be worth the price just to hear Curly (in "Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise") say: "It brings out the wood nymph in me." Highly recommended, equal to "A Plumbing We Will Go."