This is something I've been curious about for many years: the head shots of the Stooges used in the opening titles of the shorts. There is a photo on the back cover of Moe's autobiography (Moe Howard & The 3 Stooges) which is a double-exposure of Curly, Larry and Moe both in and out of character. I don't think it's exactly the same photo, but I think it's clear that some of the "head shot" heads in the title sequences came from the same photo shoot. I'm referring to the shorts starting with Disorder In The Court. Then starting with You Nazty Spy! Larry's head shot changes to a different one (which might be the same one from the 1934-1936 shorts), then changes back starting with Idiots DeLuxe. Moe's and Larry's then stay the same all the way through Commotion On The Ocean; meanwhile, starting with Fright Night it appears they just stuck Shemp's head over Curly's.
I guess my question is: Are the full original photos out there, from which they cut out the title sequence head shots? I'd like to see them.
There is also a still from (IIRC) Phony Express which is the picture used on the wanted poster for vagrancy. A variation of this photo was printed in Moe Feinberg's book and in Jeffrey Forrester's Stooge Mania, with Shemp's head stuck over Curly's. I remember thinking I'd seen the original Shemp photo in some book and that it was a still from a Stooge short. But that can't be correct, because in Steve Cox and Jim Terry's One Fine Stooge, they show a news clipping promoting a 1945 personal appearance using this photo, and the article states Curly is ill and the original third Stooge, Shemp, is filling in. Which explains why that doctored picture existed in the first place. But that "Shemp head" also seemed to look familiar -- I guess I'd like to track down the original photo it came from too.
I know this might seem obsessive, but I guess I've just about run out of Stooge minutae to ask about...
