Customer Reviews

[VHS] The Three Stooges, 2000 (TV)

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

 

 

I saw the movie when it aired eight years ago, and I have to agree that it could have been done much better. The basic accuracy and the great acting convinced me to give it 4 stars. It was nice to see Paul Ben-Victor play a good guy for a change. Evan Handler was very funny as Larry Fine (I'm now a fan of his thanks to his role in this film). Michael Chiklis did a wonderful job portraying Curly. John Kassir did a fine job playing Shemp.

Now for the knocks. I think they could have toned down Shemp's on-screen cowardice. A few more remade bits of some of the Shemp comedies from the late 1940s would have been nice, especially if they had added the one in which Curly played a cameo role. I didn't like the way they treated Joe Besser's character. Besser was a very funny man in his own right, but he already had an established character and it simply didn't mix well with the deliberately roughneck Stooges. I think the creators of the film could have toned down Ted Healy's villainy. Yes, he was a chronic alcoholic and didn't pay his stooges what they were worth, but offstage Ted and Moe were dear friends.

I can forgive the errors in the timeline. The casual fans get the idea of roughly when certain things happened. With only 90 minutes or so, there's only so much the filmmakers can do. The portrayal of Curly's illness beginning around 1940 was off the mark, but not by a whole lot. Although Curly didn't start having his strokes until 1945, chances are good he probably started feeling the effects of his high blood pressure, poor diet, drinking, and hectic schedule for at least a year or two prior to that. As an overweight person in his late 30s, I know my health would be shot in short order if I had to follow the same schedule Curly did.

I agree that this film should have been at least a two-part miniseries. Had it been shown on the big screen, the filmmakers would have had to extend the film by another hour just to tell the story with significant accuracy.

Overall, I really liked the movie and I hope they release it onto DVD soon. I taped it off TV when it was aired, and now the tape's worn out. So hopefully this appeal to have this film re-released will not fall upon deaf ears.

I watched this movie when it aired on cbs for the first time and I loved it and there should have been alot of copies of the tapes released because in my opinion they would have sold and sold but they decided not to and only make a few and now there is so many people trying to make there three stooges collection perfect but with the exception of one this movie maybe since Michael chickliss is starting to get bigger maybe they'll release the past movies hes stared in and if not they'll just go up in price perusual.

Like a lot of other biopics, this one is no exception in that there's a lot more fiction than fact. Most of the basic facts are correct, but there are also a great many errors, character assassinations, and events that are either depicted as happening differently than they really did or cut and pasted with other events. For the casual viewer, this will probably seem like a great movie, but for those who are more serious fans, it's going to be a lot harder to take. While it's true that most movies based on books aren't 100% true to the original, nor should they be expected to, given the limited amount of time to tell the story, this is more of an inexcusable thing when the movie is actually based on the lives of real people. Casual fans aren't going to know or care about things like when such and such a director began working at Columbia, that the sound effects are wrong, or who was the head of the short subjects department when the Stooges began working at Columbia; if only nitpicking details like that were the only errors here, it wouldn't have been so bad.

The biopic was based on Michael Fleming's book 'From Amalgamated Morons to American Icons,' a book which also isn't 100% accurate (which in actual fact has some embarrassing errors), but which still has a lot more fact than this biopic. The biopic doesn't even follow all of the events the way they're outlined in Fleming's book. The real story of these men is fascinating enough, so why does it need to have so many liberties taken and so much pathos inserted to try to make it appeal to a wider audience? Additionally, an hour and a half is hardly enough time to tell the story of an entire career; perhaps less important events would have been left out and less time glossed over had this biopic been at least a two-parter.

There are too many errors and omissions to get into here, but some of the more important ones are the character assassinations (Ted Healy may have had some problems with drinking and didn't really pay the boys enough money, but he was far from the complete monster he was depicted as here, and Shemp may have had a lot of phobias, but he was far from the cowardly crybaby the movie shows him as; he was actually the one who was the least afraid of getting hurt), the fact that the boys are more or less always acting in character, even offscreen (when in actual fact there was a really interesting, and even quite touching, contrast between their screen personae and their real-life personalities; for example, Moe was an incredibly nice guy in real life, the complete opposite of the short-tempered bully he portrayed), Curly is shown as having minor strokes as early as 1940 (and the circumstances of his major stroke in 1946 are all wrong; he did not have a stroke while the cameras were rolling), the perpetuation of the apocryphal legend about Joe DeRita being the new Stooge of choice after Shemp died, the Shemp era itself being glossed over in the blink of an eye (one minute they're shooting 'Fright Night' and the next he's in a coffin!), how the three youngest Horwitz brothers are shown performing onstage together as kids in the opening scene and doing bits of their act (the three brothers who got into show business never were onstage together as kids, and weren't even doing stuff like hitting one another until years later), and the fact that the entire premise of the movie makes no sense (since by April of 1959, they already knew they were on the comeback trail, so it makes no sense for Moe to want to refuse to appear before an audience again). The recreations of the shorts also come across very badly and inaccurately. Oh, and I don't think that Mabel Fine was a stripper. She was a dancer, but not the exotic type.

As I've said, this does seem like a really good movie and a nice way to pass some time if you're just a casual viewer or a new fan, but if you're more of a hardcore fan, you're liable to be distracted and angered by all of the inaccuracies. And since there was so much pathos in this movie, it's baffling as to why they left out some very poignant events or portrayed them differently (such as their reactions to hearing Ted Healy had been murdered, or the real circumstances of Curly's stroke). Although I will give this biopic credit for depicting how they were exploited by Columbia and never given a raise for like 25 years, something I don't think many casual fans are really aware of. I'll admit that there are some accurate things in it and some moments I did find moving, but overall, it comes across as more of an insult than a tribute.

I've been a Three Stooges fan for enough years that I know their story pretty well by now, which brings me to this movie. For being only an hour and a half, it actually covers a lot and hints at a great deal more about the Stooges as people that fans will recognize instantly. Curley's love of dogs and Larry's gambling habit make cameos throughout the movie without being explicit and diverging from the main narrative. Yes, characters are exaggerated here and there, but I think their good sides are shown as well, even in Healy's case. He genuinely seems happy when he says he's going to be a Father, but due to time constraints it was necessary to show why the Stooges left him by playing up his abrasiveness and drinking. The only thing I would have altered a bit with his portrayal was making him stutter a tad more during his performances. Healy wasn't a quick study and flubbed through many of his lines in "Soup to Nuts." Also, Curley joined with Healy after Shemp's departure for a few films, but in this movie the Stooges completely break from Healy before Curley joins. They played up Shemp's phobias a lot too, and if you ignore him whining about Healy 'hitting too hard' you get the real story of why he left, which was Healy not paying him well, although no mention is made at all about his successful solo career. It's almost like he retired and came back to work because he was asked, lol. I don't know if Healy was ever almost shot by an irate girlfriend, but his coming in and laughing about it implies his prankster personality. I like how the wives were portrayed for the most part, but it would have been nice to credit Helen with writing Hoi Poloi, since it was her idea, and in my opinion one of the funniest shorts. None of the stooges are exact replicas of the real ones, but if you pay close attention, you can see the actors spent a lot of time studying them. The actor who plays Moe walks exactly like him, and I think captures his essence very well, particularly his more personal side which many people who don't know the Stooges would never guess he was like. Larry has the closest sounding voice to his real life counterpart, but I would have liked seeing his zany side a bit more; he does let Curley influence him into pestering Moe on the train, so I can't complain too much. Curley is very well done and probably comes closest to any of the real Stooges, and I can't complain too much about Shemp, since the actor is doing his best to impersonate him and succeeds quite well. Joe sort of gets a raw deal. His only scene makes him appear like a real pain to work with when in fact he did take some hits and was appreciative of his time with the Stooges. He wasn't fired as was implied, and completed the contract at Columbia and was only replaced because his wife fell ill and he didn't want to travel and leave her. However, it's true Besser was picked because he was already under contract and Derita couldn't get out of his until later. All in all, despite a few inaccuracies, this is a very well done and touching film. I always cry at the end because at last, they get a touch of what they deserved all along, some recognition and proper pay. It's beautifully done from beginning to end and I am not bothered by the changes at all, but thought I would list a few of them. The one omission I wish had been included was Moe finding out about Healy's death in the phone booth. It would have been more dramatic than the throw away scene that was put in instead. Aside from that, this film captures the Stooges lives well for the most part and I also enjoyed seeing many popular Stooge routines and lines included through-out the film. All in all, I give it five stars for the great acting, costumes and overall production quality and include it among my favorite movies.

Before watching this I had no idea the history behind the 3 Stooges. What actually drew me into watching it was finding out that Michael Chiklis plays Curly. A great actor, Chiklis played in TV shows as a good guy in The Commish from the 80's-90's and then later as a bad guy in the controversial show The Shield much later.

This story of the 3 Stooges is told from the point of view of Moe, as the head of the trio and the one trying to make the best career decisions for the group. It gives an insight into the struggles they went through on their way to the top.

There is so much to the Stooges story that the film spends just a short time on each area of their career/life. There are times when I felt large parts were being jumped over, and by doing some online searching of their film career my suspicions were right. While I understand not everything can be included, there were definitely areas that perhaps a bit more story could have been told. Like how Ted Healy and the Stooges started working together, maybe more on Larry's gambling addiction and how Curly's strokes that lead to his death was not just a single one, but a series of them over the years.

Also I found myself lost when they started bringing in characters after Shemp's death. The film moved so fast that anyone not already familiar with 3 Stooges history (like I was not) is left wondering what just happened and how they ended up with the replacement stooges they were working with.

I believe they chose to cover a lot of the Stooges history with this film by doing many small bits of story for each area. Other than being left with a few more in depth questions about their careers, it's a good movie that gives those of us totally unfamiliar with the 3 Stooges history a glimpse into how they become the stars they were

I'd love to grab this up. But not interested in adding to my VHS library. Let me know when it is available on DVD and we'll talk turkey.

I know this movie is not entirely factual or accurate. But I really enjoyed it when it came on in 2000. I never knew it came out on VHS but I would dearly love to have it on DVD. (I would ask for Bluray but that would be wishing for the moon.) I enjoyed the Stooges when I was younger and thought I grew out of them. But seeing some of what they went through makes me appreciate them again for what they were, three hard working men trying to make a living in tough times while making millions of people laugh.

I seen this late night a couple years ago... Would love to own it, and see it again. I enjoyed the movie, and found it interesting to see a lifelike representation of these guys who entertained me for so long, even though they are long gone. Worth seeing if you like the Stooges. otherwise, i doubt you'd enjoy it. Remember it is a movie, not a documentary. So while it will tell you about their career, it won't be perfectly factual.