Wasn't this MGM Festival met with a fierce reaction from the crowd?
If I remember correctly, a book said that people were angry because there was 'too much Ted Healy and not enough Curly.'
Can anyone confirm this?
I attended several of the screenings when the films were shown in Boston at The Orson Welles Theater in 1983.
Unfortunately the screenings were Fridays and Saturdays at midnight, so sometimes it seemed a lot of rowdy folks came, who appeared to have just left drinking parties and wanted to see some funny Stooges films - the prime Curly stuff. So, yes there were some who didn't appreciate the different roles Moe, Larry and Curly played in these MGM shorts. I don't think back then, without websites and as many Stooges books as we have now, that most of them even knew who Ted Healy was. They just weren't used to someone else slapping Moe around, for one thing. And of course, a lot of folks didn't like the musical numbers that MGM inserted into these shorts.
I remember especially that ROAST BEEF AND MOVIES didn't go over very well at most of the screenings.