188 of 190 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
See review for contents of this set, September 8, 2004
This review is from: Three Stooges DVD 12-Pack (DVD)
Since I wrote this review in its original form, Amazon has now posted the main titles of the 12 DVDs included in the set. The shorts and features in each DVD are listed below. Amazingly, it is not possible to find the contents anywhere else online, including on Sony's home video page.
This is an excellent set and great value. There is one dud in the set, and that's "Stop! Look! and Laugh!," a feature film from 1961 with Paul Winchell and his dummies (Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead) in some very lame and dated routines with Stooges archive footage interspersed. All the Stooge archive footage is from Columbia shorts with Curly. They chose good selections, but unfortunately dubbed in background music that is more distracting than supportive. The bright spot in this DVD is that it contains the bonus short "A Bird in the Head," very funny despite Curly's failing health when it was made (1946). It is one of his last appearances before his early retirement caused by his first stroke, which he suffered during the filming of "Half Wits Holiday."
The other DVD featuring a 1960s feature film is "The Outlaws is Coming," which is actually the last feature film that Moe, Larry and Curly Joe DeRita made, from 1965. ("Last" if you exclude "Kook's Tour," which was filmed as a TV pilot in 1970 and only released on video after both Moe and Larry were dead.) While I am not a big fan of the Three Stooges during the final Curly Joe years, this feature is, in my opinion, mostly very good. Note, however, that younger viewers will miss many of the topical and dated references to mid-60s pop culture. This DVD also features an extremely good bonus short from the Curly years, "Goofs and Saddles." Its poker playing scene (Moe and Curly, each with 2 aces, passing cards under the table with their feet) is a classic, as good as most of Abbott and Costello's "con man" routines.
The other 10 DVDs include anywhere from 5 to 7 shorts each (most have 6). The shorts listed below all feature Curly unless indicated otherwise in brackets:
1. "Curly Classics" featuring: Men in Black (1934); Micro-Phonies (1945); Punch Drunks (1934); Three Little Pigskins (1934); Woman Haters (1934); and A Plumbing We Will Go (1940).
2. "All the World's a Stooge" featuring: Grips, Grunts and Groans (1937); All The World's a Stooge (1941); 3 Dumb Clucks (1937); Three Little Pirates (1946); Uncivil War Birds (1946); Back to the Woods (1937); and Violent is the Word for Curly (1938).
3. "Spook Louder" featuring [all have Shemp, except for Spook Louder, with Curly]: Spook Louder (1943); Mummy's Dummies (1948); Shivering Sherlocks (1948); The Ghost Talks (1949); Hokus Pokus (1949); and Fright Night (1947).
4. "Nutty but Nice" featuring: A Ducking They Did Go (1939); Hoi Polloi (1935); Half-Wits Holiday (1947); Higher than a Kite (1943); False Alarms (1936); and Nutty but Nice (1940).
5. "Merry Mavericks" featuring [all have Shemp, except for Cactus Makes Perfect, with Curly]: Cactus Makes Perfect (1942); Out West (1947); Vagabond Loafers (1949); Dopey Dicks (1950); Punchy Cowpunchers (1950); and Merry Mavericks (1951).
6. "Dizzy Doctors" featuring [all have Shemp, except for Dizzy Doctors and Termites of 1938, which have Curly]: Dizzy Doctors (1937); Termites of 1938 (1938); Brideless Groom (1947); Listen Judge (1952); Bubble Trouble (1953); and The Tooth Will Out (1951).
7. "Healthy, Wealthy and Dumb" featuring: Gents without Cents (1944); Healthy, Wealthy and Dumb (1938); If a Body Meets a Body (1945); Rockin' Through the Rockes (1945); Phony Express (1943); and Whoops, I'm an Indian (1936).
8. "Three Smart Saps" featuring: Three Arabian Nuts [Shemp] (1951); Three Little Beers (1935); Three Smart Saps (1942); Three Dark Horses [Shemp] (1952); and Three Loan Wolves (1946).
9. "Cops and Robbers" featuring: Calling All Curs (1939); Disorder in the Court (1936); Dizzy Detectives (1943); Flat Foot Stooges (1938); Crime On Their Hands [Shemp] (1948); and Who Done It? [Shemp] (1949).
10. "G. I. Stooge" featuring: Boobs in Arms (1940); Back from the Front (1943); G.I. Wanna Go Home (1946); Wee Wee Monsieur (1938); No Dough Boys (1944); and Dizzy Pilots (1943).
11. "The Outlaws is Coming" (feature film from 1965, with Curly Joe DeRita), also featuring Goofs and Saddles (1937).
12. "Stop! Look! and Laugh!" (feature film from 1960, with Paul Winchell and lots of Stooges archive footage), also featuring A Bird in the Head (1946)
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204 of 216 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Three Stooges DVD 12-Pack, December 25, 2003
This review is from: Three Stooges DVD 12-Pack (DVD)
Although the quality varies from each 2-reeler and the mistake of not putting everything in order, this Columbia box set is the only way to begin a credible collection of our favorite Stooges (with Curly, naturally). You get the 12 released Columbia discs; Curly Classics, All The World's A Stooge, Spook Louder, Nutty But Nice, Merry Mavericks, Dizzy Doctors, Healthy Wealthy And Dumb, Three Smart Saps, Cops And Robbers, G.I.Stooge, and the shorts Stop Look and Laugh and The Outlaws is Coming which each also contain a "Curly Classic". This Entire box set gives you 44 of the 97 Curly's and to update it you will need to buy "Three Stooges in History" which is overpriced and "Stooges At Work" which comes out 1-13-04. You need to accept the Shemp episodes as they are inserted on various discs.
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61 of 63 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Of all the things to transcend the ages...The Stooges???, October 5, 2004
This review is from: Three Stooges DVD 12-Pack (DVD)
I had a $50 gift certificate for amazon and decided to parlay my good fortune with another $48 and take the plunge into the best anthology availble of the lovable, sadistic clowns.
The set is a package of 12 dvds in keep cases. There is no written material other than the short descriptions which attempt to provide some historical perspective.
The quality of the pictures and sound are what I consider very good for material that is nearly 70 years old. The disks do contain subtitles, which I appreciate for late night viewing.
I have three boys aged 5 to 12. The two older boys, the middle one in particular (10) do enjoy the shorts. The funniest thing about all the Stooges shorts are the hilarious sound effects. Even my wife, who really can't understand the attraction we men have in Larry Moe and Curley, will find herself cracking up to the unexpected "Bonk!"
I try to explain to my boys that in the olden days, this was what we got to see before the main feature at our local movie house or, in my case, on rainy days in the Portland School District when it was too rainy to play outside for recess.
So, in order to give them a feel for times gone by, whenever we have "movie night" at our house (usually Friday or Saturday), before we crank up the home theater system with the latest technological marvel from Lucas or Peter Grant, we take a step back in time where the only miracles one saw was a man getting hit in the face with a monkey wrench and shaking it off like a mosquito bite.
Is it PC? No. Does it provide good role models? No. Is it the best 48 bucks I ever spent on a dvd set? By all means yes. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't hesitate even if I didn't have the gift certificate. Good value, great laughs! Parents, don't let your children grow up without knowing Larry, Moe, Curley, Shemp and Curley Joe. The comedy is ageless and there isn't anybody since who has come close to touching the funnybone of young and old alike. God bless you Stooges!
PS The box and some advertisments cite "600 Minutes of Laughs!" I don't know who is doing the adding at the graphics department, but each dvd averages 90 to 100 minutes making a grand total of more like 1200 minutes, or a good 20 hours of mayhem!
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