Customer Reviews

The Three Stooges - Stooges and the Law

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

 

 

This set of five stooges shorts all feature Curly in some excellent shorts including one bonafide classic.

"The Three Troubledoers" 1946..a late Curly where he clearly is not at the top of his game. Set in the old west The boys set out prevent a marriage between the villain Blackie and the heroine Nell (Christine McIntyre).

"Idiots Deluxe" 1945. Moe is on trial for assaulting Curly and Larry with an ax. Moe relates how Curly and Larry took him on a hunting trip for his nerves and how be came to go nuts.

"In the Sweet Pie and Pie" 1941 - The stooges are convicts about to be executed for some murders they didn't commit. The day before the execution they are tricked into marrying three rich girls who need husbands to collect a legacy. At the last minute the real murderers confess and the stooges are pardoned. The girls are now stuck with the stooges so they plot to get rid of them by making them become gentlemen. One of the many takes on a common Stooges plotline.

"yes we Have no Bonanzas" 1939 - Set in a western town, the stooges are working as waiters in a saloon with the three girls they hope to marry. The owner of the saloon is a crook who has buried $40,000 of stolen money. The boys go prospecting and dig up the stolen money, which the crooks recognize as their loot and abscond with. A wild chase ensues, ending with the bad guy's car crashing into the Sheriff's office.

"Pop Goes the Easel" 1935 The Classic of the set. The stooges are down and out. With a cop chasing them, they flee into an artists studio where they are mistaken for students. The cop continues to hunt for them and they use a variety of disguises and tactics to elude him. A wild clay throwing fight ends the film. Features the hilarious line when Moe says "My old Man used to draw" and Curly says, "yeah, he drew 20 years with one stroke of the pen!" Awesome!

These are among the best Curly-era shorts that the Stooges made and the prints look pretty good, but it's very apparent that Columbia has run out of ideas for DVD "themes" and have begun to repeat themselves ("Cops & Robbers" comes to mind). I feel the same as many fans that it would've been a lot easier if Columbia had simply released all 190 shorts in chronological order from the beginning instead of doing "themed" releases.

At long last, Columbia has finally listened to the many complaints from Stooge fans about not being able to watch the shorts straight through and have remedied the problem on this DVD as well as the previous "Stooges At Work" DVD. Thank goodness they've also done away with the annoying loadup intros that plagued some of the earlier releases, especially the pinball and slot machine sequences. You had no choice but to sit through it because you couldn't get past them.

Columbia also needs to include more shorts on the DVD's; they started out with 6 or more in the beginning, but they've now cut it down to 5 each. Maybe someday Columbia will get it's act together...one can only hope!

The good news about this DVD is that finally there's a "Play All" button. The bad news is that there are only five shorts included here. It's ridiculous how Columbia doesn't see fit to include a lot more shorts on these discs, particularly considering how these films are under 20 minutes long. They could easily include twice that amount, but then again, this studio was never exactly known for having a lavish budget like MGM or Paramount. However, the paltry five shorts included are all pretty good.

'Pop Goes the Easel' (1935) was their seventh short at Columbia. In these very early shorts one can see that they hadn't quite gotten the magic formula down pat just yet, though they are getting there slowly but surely (their screen characters are more developed by this point than they were in, say, 'Men in Black'). It would only take but a few shorts more for them to finally get that magic formula down pat. Though this is one of those early shorts, it is one of the best ones, though not one I'd consider one of their absolute all-time greatest. It seems as though a lot of these early shorts have been declared classics and totally great simply because they were done so early in their career, and not because of any other factors, like a solid plot or truly memorable lines. There are great moments, like the clay fight at the end and when Larry speaks Yiddish to the cop (since I love hearing them use Yiddish words and Jewish references), but overall it's not paced as tightly and quickly as their shorts would be just a short time later, instead having a more improvised feel to it. (This one is also notable because Larry's daughter Phyllis and Moe's daughter Joan are featured in a brief scene.)

'Yes, We Have No Bonanza' (1939) is actually one of their best Westerns, though like in their other Westerns, this one too has a slower pace to it. It starts out kind of slow (particularly because of the musical number), but quickly picks up the pace. Maybe not one of their all-time greatest, but as far as their Western-themed shorts go, this one is terrific.

'In the Sweet Pie and Pie' (1941), which has a similar plot to the old Charley Chase short 'Long Fliv the King' and has one gag that was previously done in the Buster Keaton short 'Convict 13,' is a classic. It's pure entertainment all of the way through, with not a dull moment or wasted scene. Everything about it is great, although I can't quite grade this one as a 5-star short due to the unnecessary recycled footage of the dancing instruction scene from 'Hoi Polloi.' I think this was the third time that one of their shorts contained recycled footage, although at least here it's mercifully for only one short scene as opposed to how heavily stock footage was used by the mid-Fifties.

'Idiots Deluxe' (1945) is another great classic, perhaps a bit slower-paced than usual, but great nonetheless. It's also an interesting perspective to have the meat of the short be a flashback, since usually these shorts have an episodic structure to them. The cabin that most of the action takes place in and around was used in several of their later shorts (even into the dreadful Besser era), and without fail, there was always a lot of violence that broke out in that cabin. However, as incredible and perfect as this short is, it's kind of sad to realise that this was the last short made before Curly got sick. He did turn in a few more great performances after this, but he'd never look or sound this good again.

'The Three Troubledoers' (1946) is another Western, and expectedly has a slower pace. This one is the weakest of the lot, though at least Curly puts in a pretty good performance in this one despite being sick. However, that may be more due to the fact that these Western shorts had a slower pace anyway, and so his illness wasn't as immediately noticeable because he wasn't called upon to do any frenetic slapstick or anything else that requires rapid-fire energy. It's overall a mediocre short, but still not what I'd consider the bottom of the barrel.

One mediocre short out of five isn't bad, even though it wouldn't kill Columbia to put a lot more shorts on these discs. And once again we see that not all of these shorts really relate to the supposed theme (e.g., the opening and closing scenes of 'Idiots Deluxe' take place in a courtroom, but the main body doesn't; the beginning of 'In the Sweet Pie and Pie' has the boys in jail, but the majority of the short finds them as free men). It's also a bit too close to one of the previously-issued discs, 'Cops and Robbers.' And these supposed themes are that different because...?

I could tell you which shorts are on this DVD and the like, but you already know all that. That said...

Video Quality: Considering these shorts range from 58-69 years old, they look pretty good. There's no major problems with the visuals - they're certainly better than the VHS versions.

Audio Quality: Mono is about as good as we'll get with these shorts. It's far from ideal, but it's decent enough.

Etcetera: I'm tired of these themes, especially this one, which is all too close to the "Cops and Robbers" DVD. I'd like to see the DVDs released by year - the Stooges usually made 6-9 shorts per year. Also, I wish there more than 5 shorts here, but Stooge VHS/DVD collections have always been short-changed. The old VHS tapes usually had 3 shorts on them, when they could have had a fe w more.

DVD Review- After releasing the magnificent 'Stooges At Work' DVD, Columbia gives us Stooge fans 5 more Stooge shorts to enjoy. This collection contains 5 shorts that fit the 'Law' theme very well. "The Three Troubledoers" is the only weak short in this collection. The other 4 are as hilarious as can be.

Picture Quality- All shorts are 35mm prints and they look good, except there are quite a bit of dirt at times. "Pop Goes The Easel" looks very nice, especially since it's the oldest short in this collection.

Sound Quality- All the shorts sound very good, except for "Yes, We Have No Bonanza". The sound on that short is somewhat distorted and could be bothersome at times.

Final Comments- This collection contains some very good shorts. However, Columbia didn't do such a good job as their previous release, 'Stooges At Work', in terms of picture and sound quality. They did a descent job, however. No special features are on this collection except for a Spanish audio track and English subtitles. Columbia gives us the 'Play All' feature which is another plus. Overall, very nice collection, but still could've used better effort by Columbia.

Here we see the Stooges in jail for suspicion of murder. Three beautiful women meet them and propose marriage. The Stooges are about to be executed but are freed after the real murderer(s) confessed. Moe is court,being tried for mayhem. Curly with Larry alongside him in the audience,shouts to the judge,"You mean murder!" Moe is acquitted and continues with the behavior that brought him into the courtroom. The Stooges even find a bonanza which is stolen money(the crooks buried it underground). The Stooges become artists and later go to war with wet clay! Also a beautiful girl named Nell promises to marry Curly,a newly appointed sheriff,if he saved her father's life and bring Blackie,an armed villain,to justice. In POP GOES THE EASEL,the artist film,the real-life daughters of Moe Howard and Larry Fine,then small children,appear in the scene where they play hopscotch and they both chuckle when their dads and Curly play. A must for all Three Stooges fans.

this dvd is one of a 12 dvd set i needed it and it is a good one

We gave this DVD to our 46 year old son for Christmas per his request.

He has always been a big fan of The Three Stooges and this lived up to his expectation. I'm sure he has seen this before, but he wanted to add this to his DVD collection.

The quality of these retorations is pretty good, but not as top notch as some of the other releases.

This set's irresistable for seeing as much of Curly as you might need, though.

Given technology today, why could the studio not load a high number of all-Curly shorts onto one or a few DVDs? It would surely be a boon to Stooge lovers...