Topic: 3 Stooges Collection 1934 - 1936, October 30

[BeAStooge]

From Sony Pictures Home Entertainment...

Larry, Moe and Curly Are “N'Yuk, N'Yuk, N'Yuk”-ing it Up in a New, Definitive Volume of Classic Shorts

THE THREE STOOGES COLLECTION
VOLUME ONE: YEARS 1 - 3

All 19 Digitally-Restored Two-Reelers from 1934 through 1936 Packaged in a Two-Disc DVD

AVAILABLE ON OCTOBER 30

CULVER CITY, CALIF. (August 20, 2007) – Eye-gouging, nose-tweaking, stomach-poking, ear-pulling, head-slapping, pie-throwing, and seltzer-spraying can only mean one thing. The classic comedy trio of Larry, Moe, and Curly are back doing what they do best. On October 30, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will launch its definitive new series of Three Stooges DVDs with The Three Stooges Collection: Years 1-3. This first volume includes all 19 shorts from the boys’ first three years at Columbia. The two-reelers are chronologically organized by their original release date and painstakingly restored from the original negatives for the very best picture and audio quality. The DVD will be available in a two-disc package for the standard retail price of $24.96.

The Three Stooges are one of the most significant screen comedy teams of the 20th century, on par with Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, and Martin and Lewis -- an inspiration to generations of comics that followed. The trio’s film career began in the early 1930s, reached its slapstick peak during their tenure at Columbia (1934-1957), and lasted well into the 1950s. After their initial retirement, they were rediscovered by an enthusiastic new generation through the medium of television and have outstripped all their contemporaries in terms of lasting popularity. "The Three Stooges Collection: Years 1 - 3" finally pays the Stooges their due by tracing the evolution and development of their craft by presenting the films in progressive order.

The Three Stooges Collection: Years 1 - 3 includes the following titles:

1934 - WOMAN HATERS, PUNCH DRUNKS (only short actually written by the Stooges), the Oscar® nominated MEN IN BLACK, and THREE LITTLE PIGSKINS (featuring a young Lucille Ball).

1935 - HORSES' COLLARS (their first Western spoof), RESTLESS KNIGHTS (first “triple-slap” in a Stooge short), POP GOES THE EASEL (first film for frequent director Del Lord), UNCIVIL WARRIORS (set during the Civil War), PARDON MY SCOTCH (first Stooge short to use “Listen to the Mockingbird” as its theme song), HOI POLLOI (remade as Half-Wits Holiday in 1947), and THREE LITTLE BEERS.

1936 - ANTS IN THE PANTRY (features silent star Clara Kimball Young), MOVIE MANIACS (features Charlie Chaplin’s first wife Mildred Harris), HALF-SHOT SHOOTERS (first short in which the Stooges get killed), DISORDER IN THE COURT (features the famous “swearing in” scene with Curly), A PAIN IN THE PULLMAN (the longest short of the series), FALSE ALARMS, WHOOPS, I'M AN INDIAN!, and SLIPPERY SILKS (featuring the first Stooges cream dessert fight).

The Three Stooges Collection: Years 1 - 3 has a run time of approximately 345 minutes and is not rated. Artwork is available at www.SPHEPUBLICITY.COM. Visit Sony Pictures Home Entertainment on the Web at www.SonyPictures.com.

DVD Catalog # 21104
UPC Code: 043396211049
Order Date: 09/27/07
SLP: $24.96

[Justin T]

YES YES YES YES!!

Thanks for posting this BeAStooge.

FINALY! Sony has made this DVD set official! About damn time.

Hmm, no mention of bonus features, was hoping that would be on there.
If not, hope they have some on future volumes.

Can't wait for October 30th.

[Curley91]

YAHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm happy this info is truly official now, and am anxiously anticipating October 30th!  I'm also happy to see that they are now giving us TWO disks for the price of one old one! 

[3Stooges]

Can someone post a photo of the artwork. The press release says you can see it at www.SPHEPUBLICITY. COM, but I think you need to be company and I dont have an account...

[xraffle]

Nice going BeAStooge! It's nice that Sony made this DVD official. I hope Three Little Beers will be unedited. I also hope A Pain In The Pullman would be a nice crisp 35mm print and not that bad, shaky copy we all have on VHS.

[ThumpTheShoes]

I never doubted any of this. Ever!

No, really!

Now, I'm off to watch a Stooges marathon-- and start waiting. I'm not looking forward to the waiting...

-Th

[mike754]

This is truly awsome news but on the ''tech'' side of things, When sony said the shorts will be remastered from the original negitive does that mean that the master they will be using is the 70 plus year old film that was used in the cameras back then? I can't imagine film that old could be turned into a pristine print. I don't want to sound like i'm complaining here because i'm not. I was just curious about the shorts that have never been on dvd.

[Jimmie Adams]

About this new release:....YESSSSSSS!

I was under the impression that Columbia had scrapped all of their nitrate by 1974, but I would love to be wrong.

I have seen a 1904 Vitagraph comedy printed from an original negative and you could see the threads in the coats of the characters.  If the neg has not shrunk, it should be fine as it will run through a telecine for mastering and not a projector for mastering.

I would love to see better prints of PAIN IN THE PULLMAN (looks like warpage from the original neg), MICROPHONIES (looks mastered from a dupe neg), THREE LITTLE PIRATES (emulsion scratches on neg).

A suggestion for youse Stooge fans:  When you eventually get the new Stooge sets and you have replaced the titles on the previously released DVDs, donate the older DVDs to your local library so little kids can check them out for free and we can start seeding a new fan base.

[2reelers]

I'm hoping that WOMAN HATERS has the original titles. I do believe that the print we are used to seeing was from a reissue, and never had the familiar Three Stooges title card. WOMAN HATERS isn't an official Stooges comedy...it was one of Columbia's Musical Novelties featuring Howard, Fine & Howard.

Interestingly, an earlier (and first in the series) Musical Novelty called UMPA uses the exact same score as WOMAN HATERS. The song in WOMAN HATERS is "For You"....in UMPA it's "At Last".

[stooged and confused]

Hi Mike:

Welcome aboard! To answer your "tech" question as best I can without professing to know all of the in's and out's, I have an interest and looked into how film restoration is done.

First, there is a clear distinction between remastered video and restored. Remastered means that the image used in a previous video release, for example was simply reconfigured for a DVD format. A restored project, as in the case of the new Stooges DVD set is accomplished by taking original elements from existing prints/negative. In many cases, more than one print is used to create a new master print. The process is time consuming and costly. That's probably why Sony was buying time with the Chromachoice DVD's. To get an idea of restored versus remastered, the Chromachoice shorts were restored and previous DVD releases were remastered video and audio. The difference is quite drastic. Those working on the restoration process, go through a frame by frame procedure removing debis from the print(s) used to create a new restored print to be used in the final product.

I hope that helps somewhat.

[stooged and confused]

I was curious as to why when BeAStooge and myself posted the Sony press release yesterday, there was still NO mention of the set as of midnight last night on Sony's website. It is there now, along with the corrected issue date on Amazon.

The description on the Sony site is as brief as can be with no meaty info of any kind regarding the set. They even have the verbage "years 1 and 2" instead of 3! They even have the set listed in color, which is incorrect. It seems that someone at Sony doesn't even read their own press releases!

The artwork has not been finalized, but should surface very soon. I am waiting to hear a confirmation on the extras or bonus features and will post them here as soon as they are made available to me.

[xraffle]

I just checked and Sony added this DVD release to their site and Amazon changed the release date to October 30.

http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/upcoming.html

It will be nice to take a gander at the cover art and get some info on the DVD extras. I can't wait until those become available. This is getting exciting!

You can preorder the DVD now at Amazon for only $17.49. Not bad for 19 shorts.

[locoboymakesgood]

I just really, really, sincerely hope there's enough of an interest to release ALL 190 shorts within the next year or two.. I would die if they stopped after the Curly's or Shemp's due to decreasing sales... I know there's some people that want either just the Shemps and just the Curly's.. or just Shemp and Joes.. I've seen a lot of great TV shows abandoned after the 2nd or 3rd (even 1st) season due to lackluster sales.. crossing my fingers here.

[stooged and confused]

That's something we'll just have to wait out and see. The "heard it through the grapevine" status was to have all 190 episodes out over a 2/12 to 3 year period. It's obvious that the Curly sets will sell more than the Shemp sets and less of the Joe sets from a general marketplace standpoint. I hope (and feel strongly) that there is enough of a die hard Three Stooges fan base to warrant all sets to sell well enough to be considered releaseable. However, let's hope Sony feels the same way.

[Pat The Stooge]

I hope the DVD will have in colorizing option.

[stooged and confused]

Pat:

The new DVD's are restored black and white prints, not the Chromachoice color option on the past four DVD releases.

[xraffle]

I would love to see better prints of PAIN IN THE PULLMAN (looks like warpage from the original neg), MICROPHONIES (looks mastered from a dupe neg), THREE LITTLE PIRATES (emulsion scratches on neg).

I couldn't agree more. Hopefully, all the shorts released on these new DVD sets would be transferred from the best possible elements available.

First, there is a clear distinction between remastered video and restored. Remastered means that the image used in a previous video release, for example was simply reconfigured for a DVD format. A restored project, as in the case of the new Stooges DVD set is accomplished by taking original elements from existing prints/negative.

Exactly. The film negatives are the masters and the DVD transfers are the remasters. And if the DVD says "Digitally Remastered," then that means all the shorts that were previously released on DVD, such as Woman Haters, Disorder In The Court etc.., were transferred again on DVD. If they just took what they transferred on the previous DVD and just inserted it on this set, then it is not digitally remastered. I hope I made it clear and not confusing. If I did, let me know and I'll try and clarify it a little better.

I just really, really, sincerely hope there's enough of an interest to release ALL 190 shorts within the next year or two.. I would die if they stopped after the Curly's or Shemp's due to decreasing sales...

I hope so too, but it all depends on how well Sony does with these sets. If they are going to release all the shorts using the best possible elements and restore them, then I don't see how they could go wrong. If they are just going to release the shorts like they did in previous years, where they used bad prints, such as A Plumbing We Will Go, then sales will surely go down. So, we just have to cross our fingers. I'm still debating on whether or not I should sell all my old VHS tapes, while they still have some value.

[Curley91]

I hope that the shorts are all beautiful, crisp 35mm prints as well.  I would love to have a restored copy of shorts that didn't look so hot the last time they were on DVD ("Higher Than A Kite,"  "Grips, Grunts And Groans," and of course, "Micro-Phonies.")

[xraffle]

I agree with you. "Micro-Phonies" is such a great short that it deserves a nice, crisp 35mm print transferred to DVD. All copies I've seen are all dupey looking. The print used on the VHS release wasn't so bad, but it's not the best. We'll just have to wait and see how good of a job Sony does on this upcoming DVD. If we get a nice print of A Pain In The Pullman, then that means that Sony is taking these new sets seriously.

[stooged and confused]

All of the information released thus far indicates that all shorts were "painstakingly restored." The same verbage was used on the Chromachoice transfers and if you've seen those, you know how clean and crisp they looked.

I'm sure the restoration department had their hands full on "A Pain In The Pullman." The VHS print was so wobbly, I got seasick watching it! Of course, final judgement will have to wait until we see the final product, but I'm betting this will be done properly.

[3Stooges]

Can someone post the photo???

[stooged and confused]

Here is the cover art! You are all getting to see it before anyone else! It's not even on Amazon or Sony's site yet! Enjoy!

[stooged and confused]

One thing that has me concerned is the verbage "digitally remastered" in the bottom left hand corner. It should have stated "restored" as the press release did. Hopefully, that's an error on Sony's part. Jeez, their website still shows the set in color! I have my Sony contact looking into this as well as the bonus features that there is still no word on yet. I'll keep you all posted once the info is obtained.

[BeAStooge]

One thing that has me concerned is the verbage "digitally remastered" in the bottom left hand corner. It should have stated "restored" as the press release did. Hopefully, that's an error on Sony's part. Jeez, their website still shows the set in color! I have my Sony contact looking into this as well as the bonus features that there is still no word on yet. I'll keep you all posted once the info is obtained.

In the event that this artwork is not final yet, here's a couple additional comments to pass along...

 - The tuxedo pic is not from a Columbia film. That's a publicity shot from the feature they did at Monogram Studios, SWING PARADE OF 1946 (1946). SWING PARADE is public domain, although the existing library materials are owned by Warner Brothers, via its 1996 Turner library acquisition.

 - That tuxedo pic has appeared on cheap public domain collections (GoodTimes, Marathon, Madacy, etc.), both VHS and DVD, over the past 20+ years. In my opinion, it's possible for uninformed consumers to confuse Sony's new package with past "garbage," and that could affect sales.

[3Stooges]

I'm not too crazy about the artwork. Since it's the 34-36 collection, wouldn't it make sense to use a photo from that period. Not something from 46. I agree with BeAStooges in that it looks like those public domain DVD's.

They're also using photos from BIRD IN THE HEAD, which isn't even on these DVDs.

I was hoping Sony would use the old style text. Similar to the 30's Stooge posters... Kind of like what the new Popeye DVD's look like.

I noticed that there's an unusual photo from what looks like it might be WOMAN HATERS, but I don't recognize their outfits. It's in between PUNCH DRUNKS and 3 LITTLE PIGSKINS on the middle of the page. I've never seen that photo before.