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Released February 20, 1936
Featuring Moe, Larry and Curly
Columbia
18 min. (Short Subject)

The boys are stowaways on a train box-car filled with furniture bound for Hollywood where they hope to break into movies and become stars. Arriving at the Carnation Pictures Studios. Fuller Rath, the studio general manager, receives a telegram from the home office telling him that a certain "Mr. Smith and his two assistants" will arrive to take over the supervision of the studios. He mistakes the Stooges as the executives and gives them free reign over the studios, where they proceed to disrupt and destroy the production of a romantic drama.

A scene with the Stooges demonstrating kissing techniques was cut when originally released to television in 1958 by Columbia's Screen Gems, deemed too risque for children's programming. 1960/70s Screen Gems syndication prints restored the scene. Home video versions present the complete film.

The original version of the script cast the Stooges as studio scriptwriters who take control of the film, and burn down the soundstage! These scenes, from Jules White's files at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences Library, were transcribed in The Three Stooges Journal # 100 (Winter 2001). The film's script was revised during filming. A production still of the Stooges amidst a burnt soundstage (also from White's file) in evidence of the original script; that photo was printed in Journal # 100. There is no known evidence that any of the "fire" scenes were actually filmed.

Studio records show MOVIE MANIACS was filmed October 25 - 29, 1935. An additional call sheet in Jules White's file is dated November 27, implying that scene revisions were filmed a month later. If revised scenes took more than that one day is unknown at this time.

The aforementioned "kissing" segment is notorious for a dialogue segment, with Eve Reynolds referring to Curly as "Mr. Howard," although she shouldn't know who he is. That scene is a holdover, filmed when the original script was still in play, and left in after the plot was revised.

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Avg. Rating: [9.39/10]
 
MOVIE MANIACS on IMDb

Bud Jamison
Fuller Rath

Jack Kenney
Rath's assistant

Blackie Whiteford
Studio guard

Heinie Conklin
Studio guard

Kenneth Harlan
Leading man

Mildred Harris
Leading lady

Elaine Waters
'Marie,' maid actress

Harry Semels
Cecil Z. Swinehardt

Hilda Title
Script girl

Lois Lindsey
Moe's kissing partner

Althea Henley
Larry's kissing partner

Eve Reynolds
Curly's kissing instructor

Antrim Short
Cameraman

Charlie Phillips
Asst. cameraman

Harry Tenbrook
Lighting technician

Lew Davis
Boom operator

Bert Young
Studio crewman

Charles Dorety
Studio crewman

George Gray
Studio crewman

Harry Keatan
Studio crewman

John Barrymore
Himself, photograph


Jules White
Producer

Del Lord
Director

Felix Adler
Story and Screenplay

Benjamin Kline
Photography

William A. Lyon
Film Editor



















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