My review was written in April 1983 after a Greenwich Village screening. NOTE: this theatrical compilation film (in 35mm) is not to be confused with a later VHS release titled "The Three Stooges Festival", with different contents, not from MGM or UA Classics.
"The MGM Three Stooges Festival" is a welcome compilation of 50-year-old (as of 1983, that is) short films for buffs but a letdown for contemporary young fans of the Three Stooges, as they play supporting roles to manager/teammate Ted Healy here. UA Classics has minted four 35mm prints for repertory theatre use.
Before embarkin on their still-extremely popular (and worth exploiting as midnight movie fare) series of Columbia short subjects, the Stooges appeared in several MGM feature films such as "Dancing Lady" and "Meet the Baron". The MGM festival compilation covers nearly all their short films for the studio: "Nursery Rhymes", "Beer and Pretzels" and "Plane Nuts" from 1933 and "The Big Idea" from 1934, as well as a Curly Howard solo venture "Roast-Beef amd Movies". Missing is "Hello Pop" from 1933, for which no negative was available to create a new print.
Best work on display is "Beer and Pretzels" which plays well as slapstick comedy in the vein of later Stooges shorts, only with Healy as the leader of the group working as waiters. Healy dishes out punishment in what eventually became Moe's slot. Also on hand is a fifth member of the group, Bonnie Bonnell, whose monotone singing and eccentric dancing have dated badly.
Two of the five shorts, namely "Nurery Rhymes" and "Roast-Beef" are in two-strip Technicolor, with reddish-brown and green tones predominating.
In common with the other two weak items, there is not much Three Stooge material on view, with lengthy musical production numbers (photogrphed and staged in the famioliar Busby Berkeley-Dave Gould fashion) involving chorus liens. MGM producer Jack Cummings is crfedted with helming "Plane Nuts" and "Nursery Rhymes". This musical content (including impressive kaleidoscopic numbers), plus other nostalgia material such as a radio comedy trio doing impressions of Arthur Tracy and Bing Crosby, suggest that the film could be marketed to buffs in the manner of the Busby Berkeley reissue "The Gang's All Here". Pitching it to Stooges fans is bound to create false hopes.
"The MGM Three Stooges Festival" is a welcome compilation of 50-year-old (as of 1983, that is) short films for buffs but a letdown for contemporary young fans of the Three Stooges, as they play supporting roles to manager/teammate Ted Healy here. UA Classics has minted four 35mm prints for repertory theatre use.
Before embarkin on their still-extremely popular (and worth exploiting as midnight movie fare) series of Columbia short subjects, the Stooges appeared in several MGM feature films such as "Dancing Lady" and "Meet the Baron". The MGM festival compilation covers nearly all their short films for the studio: "Nursery Rhymes", "Beer and Pretzels" and "Plane Nuts" from 1933 and "The Big Idea" from 1934, as well as a Curly Howard solo venture "Roast-Beef amd Movies". Missing is "Hello Pop" from 1933, for which no negative was available to create a new print.
Best work on display is "Beer and Pretzels" which plays well as slapstick comedy in the vein of later Stooges shorts, only with Healy as the leader of the group working as waiters. Healy dishes out punishment in what eventually became Moe's slot. Also on hand is a fifth member of the group, Bonnie Bonnell, whose monotone singing and eccentric dancing have dated badly.
Two of the five shorts, namely "Nurery Rhymes" and "Roast-Beef" are in two-strip Technicolor, with reddish-brown and green tones predominating.
In common with the other two weak items, there is not much Three Stooge material on view, with lengthy musical production numbers (photogrphed and staged in the famioliar Busby Berkeley-Dave Gould fashion) involving chorus liens. MGM producer Jack Cummings is crfedted with helming "Plane Nuts" and "Nursery Rhymes". This musical content (including impressive kaleidoscopic numbers), plus other nostalgia material such as a radio comedy trio doing impressions of Arthur Tracy and Bing Crosby, suggest that the film could be marketed to buffs in the manner of the Busby Berkeley reissue "The Gang's All Here". Pitching it to Stooges fans is bound to create false hopes.
