Customer Reviews

Stroke of Luck

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The reason I am giving this book 5 stars is simply because it was the only autobiography written while the remaining original Stooges were still alive. However, as a Stooge fan practically since birth, it is a very sad way to remember a wonderful performer who brought so much enjoyment and laughter to millions of fans all over the world. The punctuation is almost non-existent; the "flow" of the book is all over the place, almost as if Carone just started writing from whatever tape he grabbed first. The most annoying error is on page 230, (Mabel Fine, Larry's wife of 41 years had suddenly died of a heart attack) "Moe's wife offered to make the trip back with me to California, but I thanked her and told her that my sister, Helen, would go back with me to Hollywood." Now, most Stooge fans know that Moe's wife was named Helen, and Larry's sister was Lyla. My goodness, all of the parties were still alive (the Howards, and Lyla Fine Budnick), and you'd think that there'd be some sort of fact checking (or proofreading) done.

There is very little about how things were done at Columbia, I was looking for a little more information about the day to day behind the scenes goings-on. There are pictures aplenty, although similar to Moe's autobiography, some are mis-labeled. The strangest choice of the very first photo we see is a sign that we may be in for some trouble--it's a photo from "The Three Stooges in Orbit" (I think), and it's not a flattering picture--it looks as if someone caught the fellows during an argument or something, and the lighting is not the best. Is this the kind of photo you want to lead off an autobiography? Is this the way you want to portray a man whom you claimed to be a friend of?

For an interesting overview of what went wrong with this book, (and the fact that Larry was planning to write another book because of the disastrous results of this one), pick up "One Fine Stooge". It gets into the details of what a con-man James Carone really was, and even though he claimed the book made no money, it managed to go into at least a second printing (with Larry getting no share of the profits, and also, none of his photos and other memorabilia returned.)

I'll close with this--it's a great book for the ultimate Stooge fan, but for the casual fan, stick with "Moe Howard and the Three Stooges"; "The Three Stooges Scrapbook"; and "One Fine Stooge". The books by the Forrester brothers are good, but they delve a little too much into Mousie Garner's career for no reason I can think of other than the fact that he was the only one of Healy's Stooges that was still alive at the time.