Customer Reviews

The Three Stooges: Stop! Look! and Laugh!

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I didn't like this film from the first time I saw it over 20 years ago. This is basically a rehashed hodge-podge of some 1930's shorts featuring Curly, hosted by comedian/ventriloquist Paul Winchell and "featuring" The Marquis Chimps; the average Stooges fan already owns most if not all of the shorts included here, so you won't be seeing anything new by any means. I'm not knocking Paul Winchell, because he was also popular in his own right at the time and cannot be faulted completely for agreeing to this film; the brainiacs at Columbia must've felt that a combination of Winchell's kiddie matinee schtick and the Three Stooges would obviously sell, but the result is nothing short of bizarre and pointless.

The Stooges were not with Columbia in 1960 when this was produced, as the boys were unceremoniously handed their walking papers in 1957 after 24 years at Columbia, who took the Stooges to the cleaners every chance they had (and obviously STILL are). This was a blatant attempt on the part of Columbia to capitalize on the massive success the Stooges enjoyed in the late 50's & early 60's when the old shorts featuring Curly were released to TV; in fact, the Stooges themselves were so infuriated with this move that they immediately sought legal action to stop it's release. Columbia was then forced to withdraw the film and "apologize" publicly to the Stooges and their management. Ironically, Columbia then re-signed the Stooges to a feature film contract shortly after this and went on to make 6 features; something the boys had been wanting to do throughout their initial 24 years at the studio!

Fast forward 43 years...once again the Stooges are getting "dissed" by Columbia with the re-release of this stupid film...only now, all of the Stooges are dead and unable to defend themselves. The only reason I or basically anyone would buy this DVD is for the inclusion of the short "A Bird In The Head", but that's exactly what Columbia WANTS. In yet another shrewd marketing scheme, they're sticking it to the fans and preying on their loyalty in the assumption that they'll purchase this DVD just to get this included short!

"Stop Look & Laugh" is a real stab in the back to the Stooges as well as their fans. Don't waste your time or money with this.

I'm going out on a limb with this review. This is a funny little movie. Paul Winchell and his wise cracking dummy, Jerry Mahoney, are a hoot. Almost as good is the lovably wacky Knucklehead Smiff. Notice how lunch counter-man Knuck deals with Winch's slice of suspicious raisin bread. The spliced in scenes of various Three Stooges comedies are fun, if somewhat diluted for staunch Stooge fanatics. Everything moves along nicely. The laughs are frequent. Does anyone really care that it's all low budget nonsense? Observe as Winch teaches Jerry appropriate table etiquette, especially the correct method of consuming an ear of corn. The plumbing segment is also hilarious. First time viewers beware, about three-quarters along the way, there is a terrible bump in the road. The Marquis Chimps do Cinderella in hokey costumes. What was the producer thinking? Even for a cheesy movie freak such as me, this 10-minute interlude is too much schlock. Fast-forward through this mistake, and preserve your sanity. This little movie is good for nostalgia buffs, and middle-age kiddies everywhere. From this point forward, you are on your own. ;-)

When I was a kid growing up in the 1950s my two favorite ventriloquists were Jimmy Nelson (with dummy dog Farfel and boy dummy Danny O'Day, who starred in the famous Nestles Qwick commercials) and Paul Winchell (and his wonderful dummy Jerry Mahoney). And then there were the zany Three Stooges. This film was released at the height of the Three Stooges revival, when the Columbia short subjects department had closed down and the release of the films to television created a huge hunger for more "product." What better way to wet the appetites of youngsters than to release a compilation -- and have it hosted by Paul Winchell, whose dummies with their moving hands (very clever puppetry) and zippy personalities created huge laughs. And what better way to bring it ALL together than to have the Winchell segments directed by one of the Stooge's directors. The result: a truly funny, slapstick buffet of the best of Paul Winchell at his height and some (often ham-handed) edited Stooges shorts. Winchell's bits hold up quite well. Modern day kid audiences have heard Winchell (up until recently) as the voice of Tigger in the Winnie the Pooh cartoons (it's the voice he used for Knucklehead, his dorky dummy). Some of the best Stooges bits are here, but they are edited heavily, with backgound music inserted at times -- and the music does not help the Stooges's comedy. Forget about this being a nostalgia tape. If you want to see what a toprate ventriloquist is like, at the peak of his creative and comedic powers, and see a respectible overview of the Three Stooges this is a great tape to see. ONE NOTE: Winchell's segments really do mesh quite well with the Stooges segments due to his own timing and his director's skills. (PS: I have a conflict of interest on this one. I never met Paul Winchell but I am a fulltime ventriloquist -- and I am biased towards ventriloquism and dummies...which is probably also why I follow politics).

This compilation with "The Original Three Stooges" (that's how they're billed) was released for the Saturday-matinee crowd in 1960. The Stooges clips are familiar (the gas station, the garage, the bullfight, the pie fight, etc.) but sometimes brief (a classic sequence with Moe, Larry, and Curly pantomiming to an operatic record is unfortunately cut to the bone). Ventriloquist Paul Winchell is very funny, and The Marquis Chimps appear in a clever Cinderella sketch. STOP! LOOK! AND LAUGH! is best for little kids; serious fans will prefer their Stooges "straight," in the complete, unedited episodes.

This film is a hybrid of new non-Stooges material and classic scenes. It's worth having, but Columbia continues to treat Stooges fans rather cavalierly.

With the success of the Stooges shorts on TV, it seemed like a good bet to take clips from the Curly shorts to make a new "feature" (Allied Artists did likewise with the Little Rascals, making a 'new feature' called LITTLE RASCALS FOLLIES), and STOP! LOOK! AND LAUGH! was the result. Popular kids show host, ventriloquist Paul Winchell, ties the clips together with his sidekicks, Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff, and the climax features the Marquis Chimps, well remembered from their Ed Sullivan Show stints, performing Cinderella(!!!). Not exactly your typical Stooges fare, and it's jarring to hear new music dubbed over well-known Stooges scenes.

As mentioned, it's worth having (hopefully, Columbia will provide a better transfer than some of their recent Stooges shorts collections). It's nice of them to include a bonus Stooges short, too, and A BIRD IN THE HEAD is a pretty good one. Still, this and the weak THE OUTLAWS IS COMING are the only Stooges features Columbia has yet released on DVD, leaving the superior THREE STOOGES MEET HERCULES, HAVE ROCKET WILL TRAVEL and THE THREE STOOGES IN ORBIT in the vault.

It would also be very nice of Columbia to feature bonus shorts from their catalog, perhaps as easter eggs, on the discs, such as Vera Vague, Charley Chase, or Andy Clyde.

The short, A Bird in the head is hilarious... Then there is the movie, Stop look and laugh. The only thing to look forward to about this movie was the stooge clips. It was not etertaining and actually got on my nerves quite a few times. If Colubia - Tristar plan on releasing one short with a movie, I will for sure be stopping my collection. Return to the shorts only, you want to release the movies.. do it on seperate DVD's. Otherwise you've lost a customer.. that's all I have to say about that.

This is one of those things that you can't really appreciate just how bad it is till you've actually seen it for yourself. Clip shows can be good, but this isn't even what I'd describe as a clip show. The wraparound segments feature ventriloquist Paul Winchell and his dummies Jerry and Knucklehead Smiff, and they're at least kind of a little amusing. However, I did find the idea of a grown man whose "son" is a dummy and actually going to school and acting like a real boy to be a bit bizarre. (The premise works in 'Pinocchio,' but not here.) And Jerry, the main dummy, was such an obnoxious brat that I just wished he'd get a good spanking, and I'm ordinarily very very anti-corporal punishment! And speaking of bizarre and creepy, that segment with the chimps acting out the Cinderella story made me embarrassed for the chimps! (Although it was kind of interesting to see things reflecting this era in time, like when Jerry comes home from school for his lunch break; how many schools today send their students home for lunch anymore?)

The clips themselves have tenuous connections, at best, to the wraparound segments with Winchell and his dummies. They're also not shown in exact order, what with edits and jump-cuts. If you're going to do a clip show or showcase clips in support of wraparound segments, either make them short and pertinent or have the longer clips shown without any edits. That just gives a false and truncated picture, and makes one want to see the full-length shorts. There's also kind of distracting non-original music played during most of them. The clips themselves, which actually are pretty good in spite of being shown in this misleading mutilated form, are 'Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise' (1939) (shown during the opening credits), 'How High Is Up?' (1940), 'Violent Is the Word for Curly' (1938), 'Sock-a-Bye Baby' (1942), 'Higher Than a Kite' (1943), 'What's the Matador?' (1942), 'Goofs and Saddles' (1937) (shown on a television screen and not the entire screen), 'Calling All Curs' (1939), 'Micro-Phonies' (1945), 'A-Plumbing We Will Go' (1940), and finally the heartbreaking 'Half-Wits' Holiday' (1946). If they were going to close it out with clips from a pie fight, could they possibly have chosen a worse short? Although I won't complain too much about the fact that they're billed as the "original" Three Stooges; even though real fans know that the original team consisted of Moe, Larry, and Shemp, there's no denying that the majority of people think of Moe, Larry, and Curly when they hear the group's name, and that that was the original lineup doing the Columbia shorts.

There's also a bonus short included, 'A Bird in the Head' (1946). There are some good moments in it, particularly the paper-hanging scene, but the rest of it isn't that great due to being from Curly's sick period. He does seem to be more in character than usual, and he doesn't look like a ghoul the way he does in some of the other shorts from this era, but it's still obvious that he's not his old self, even if he isn't so bad here that it's like watching him die before your eyes. Additionally, there just aren't a lot of funny lines or great gags to be had. There's a reason why Ed Bernds, who made his directorial debut with this short, decided to release the superior 'Micro-Phonies' prior to this, so that his career wouldn't appear to be starting out with such a clunker. It's just not executed well, and the ending is kind of abrupt. Still, at least it's not their absolute worst from this era.

The main feature isn't something I'd recommend unless one wants to see for oneself just how awful and pointless it really is. There was a reason that Moe and Larry sued when they saw this picture, which had been done without their knowledge or permission. How is it that an abomination like this was released on DVD, while great shorts like 'They Stooge to Conga' and 'Goof on the Roof' languish away on out-of-print videotapes?

I've read some very harsh (and probably deserved) criticisms of "Stop! Look! and Laugh!". I suppose to really enjoy a little exploitation film like this, you'd have to know about the background. You see, when the Stooges had a comeback in 1959, former Stooge directors Jules White and Harry Romm pieced together clips from some very funny Stooge comedies with Curly with some scenes with Paul Winchell and his dummies (Knucklhead Smiff and Jerry Mahoney). If you didn't know that beforehand, I can imagine being very betrayed by this film. But I kinda liked it.
I thought the Stooge clips, while edited and given strange new music, were as amusing as ever, and I was especially surprised by the Paul Winchell scenes, which were pretty darn funny. The only real flaw of this film is the Marquis Chimps' rendition of Cinderella (which comes near the end of the film).
The DVD presents "Stop! Look! And Laugh!" in its original 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio. The Paul Winchell and Marquis Chimps scenes look very clear and sharp, with only minor scratches. The Stooges scens are obviously slightly scratchier, but look very above average (some of them look better than they did on seperate DVDs, uncut).
As a special feature, the 1946 comedy "A Bird in the Head" is included. While a very sickly looking Curly Howard does not give one of his better performances, the short is well crafted and has some very funny moments. It looks remarkably clear and almost free of scratches.
A theatrical trailer (which can be seen on Anchor Bay's "Three Stooges Greatest Hits and Rarities") or some production notes would have been nice, but other than that, this is a very nice package.

I remember as a child seeing this film and returning every time a local theater revived it for the typical Saturday morning kids' feature. While I generally enjoyed the Stooges, my real enthusiasm was for Paul Winchell and his cast of wooden characters. To this day, at age 52, I still laugh out loud when Paul Winchell pulls a "Danny Thomas" with his coffee after reading the oral thermometer Jerry Mahoney had just treated with a match. Of all the popular ventriloquist acts from Bergen to today, except for the Muppets, I believe Jerry, Knucklehead, et al were the only ones of their era who moved their arms as well as their mouths and eyes. Winchell was and still is a genius.

Forget the Stooges in this one. Jerry Mahoney is the star of the show, and this movie is a great piece of early 60's nostalgia, if not one terrific bit of brain candy.

The significant thing about this DVD is that it's one of the rare times Paul Winchell filmed his ventriloquist act with Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff. Winchell was the best ventriloquist of his time in my book, and I'm thrilled that a DVD is available with his cool puppets. And The Stooges are great, as usual.