By Lee Pfeiffer
It's pretty amazing how many ways studios have devised to market and re-market The Three Stooges. The latest attempt is Sony's made-to-order 3 DVD set titled Rare Treasures from the Columbia Vault. It's a bit misleading in that the bulk of the material pertains to individual short films starring Stooge cast members, but for this reviewer, that's also what makes the set so special. There are eleven hours of material in the set including two feature films and 28 shorts. The features are Rockin' in the Rockies, a 1945 musical comedy that features the Stooges as inept prospectors in the modern west. The film seems to have been made to promote promising musical talent of the day. The story has the boys kidnapping a Broadway talent agent and holding him hostage until he hears their friends perform their revue, which includes numbers by Spade Cooley, the "King of Western Swing". The Stooges comedy bits are strewn too infrequently throughout, so I confess to keeping my finger on the "fast forward" button during some of the dated song sequences. The second feature is Have Rocket Will Travel, a late career feature for the Stooges during their renaissance period with Curly Joe taking over from the original Curly and Shemp. It's a pretty limp affair, but there is a certain charm about the total innocence of the comedy skits. It depicts an era in which three grown men could be depicted snuggling together in one bed without the slightest hint of a sexual connotation. The script finds the Stooges accidentally ending up on a space ship to Venus. Even within the way out realm they often operated in, this premise is over-the-top. Fortunately, the film ends with a more traditional setting with the boys upstaging snooty guests at a black tie dinner party. Keep an eye out for future "Time Tunnel" star Robert Colbert as the romantic lead.
The set also contains some brilliant Columbia cartoons from the 1930s that feature first rate animation. The cartoons depict famous movie stars of the day including the Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, Kate Hepburn, the Marx Brothers, Charles Laughton, etc. They are truly wonderful pieces of entertainment. Most refreshing is the inclusion of numerous shorts featuring solo gigs by Stooge actors who never quite got the acclaim they deserve. Shemp Howard headlines some of the funnier efforts, but there are also terrific turns by Joe DeRita and Joe Besser. Although Besser was married in real life, he always played overtly fey (dare we say "closeted"?) characters long before Paul Lynde had come along. His starring roles in these shorts finally afforded him the spotlight he deserved. Similarly, the porcine DeRita was a terrific comedic presence who never quite got the acclaim he deserved. Both men were of considerable girth which makes their obsession with performing high risk pratfalls even more impressive. Both Besser and DeRita's films find them in almost identical plot situations. They are generally married to conniving women or outright battle axes who henpeck them mercilessly. Kitchens often provide ample opportunity for widespread destruction as the simplest of cooking tasks inevitably meet with disaster. These post-War era shorts also accentuate the military and one of the funniest finds Besser drafted into the Army, where he drives his top sergeant crazy with his goofy behavior. (It's pretty easy to see where the inspiration for the Gomer Pyle character derived from.) It should be noted that these short films feature a stock company of brilliant comedic second bananas who appear numerous times. If the films resemble Three Stooges humor, it's not by coincidence: many were directed by the Stooges' own Jules White. Curiously, a couple of the Joe Besser shorts appear twice in re-titled versions that exclude the original prologues.
In all, this 3 DVD set is manna from heaven not only for Stooges fans but for anyone who appreciates great comedy of this era.
The set contains the following :
Rockin' In The Rockies (1945) (feature film with Curly)
Have Rocket--Will Travel (1958) (feature film with Curly-Joe)Shemp Howard solo shorts:Home On The Rage (1938)The Glove Slingers (1939)Pleased To Mitt You (1940)Money Squawks (1940)Boobs In The Woods (1940)Pick A Peck Of Plumbers (1944)Open Season For Saps (1944)A Hit With A Miss (1945)Off Again, On Again (1945)Where The Pest Begins (1945)Jiggers, My Wife (1946)Mr. Noisy (1946)Society Mugs (1946)Bride And Gloom (1947)Joe Besser solo shorts:Waiting In The Lurch (1949)Dizzy Yardbird (1950)Fraidy Cat (1950)Caught On The Bounce (1952)Aim, Fire, Scoot (1952)Spies And Guys (1953)The Fire Chaser (1954)G.I. Dood It (1955)Hook A Crook (1955)Army Daze (1956)Joe DeRita solo shorts:Slappily Married (1946)The Good Bad Egg (1947)Wedlock Deadlock (1947)Jitter Bughouse (1948)Columbia Color Rhapsody cartoonsThe Bon Bon Parade (1935)The Merry Mutineers (1936)A Hollywood Detour (1942)
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