Topic: The Outlaws IS Coming! (1965)

[metaldams]

http://threestooges.net/filmography/episode/235
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059558/?ref_=nv_sr_4



      .....and we have come to the end.  THE OUTLAWS IS COMING! will go down as the last film ever made by The Three Stooges at Columbia, and the last one I'll review.  A thirty one year run at a studio with a few small interruptions, quite an amazing and fascinating body of work, even the bad stuff, in its own weird way.  After this, there'd be a cartoon series and KOOK'S TOUR, the latter being a bunch of footage edited together haphazardly and after Larry's stroke - really an incomplete project.  THE OUTLAWS IS COMING!, to my mind, is the last Stooge film proper.

      So, how is their Columbia swan song?  Pretty mediocre overall, sad to say, but mediocre Stooges is better than no Stooges to this Stooge fan.  I will say, there was never a point in the film where I was bored it never really blown away either, though entertained.  The opening Stooge scene where they put too much powder on top to take the picture is one entertaining scene, kind of a play on they all put the yeast in from BEER BARREL POLECATS.  Kind of got a kick that the skunk is named Elvis.  Throw in the two Beatles references, namely the Japanese Beatle and the fact girls swoon over Johnny RINGO, and this is as deep in the rock 'n roll era the Stooges would get.  I wonder what they would have thought of G.G. Allin?  . The scene where Moe gets glued to the chair had great potential, I just thought it was a shame they cut, right in the middle of it, to a scene involving Annie saving Ken Cabot.  It really destroyed the rhythm, to me.  Speaking of Ken Cabot, he's played by Adam "Batman" West.  Without this history, West would seem bland.  Knowing this guy would be Batman a year later, West's trademark stilted delivery seems appropriately camp.

      One big draw of this film back in the day was the fact so many of the people who introduced Stooge films to kids on local channels showed up as outlaws who bizarrely reformed into "law and order" lovers.  It may have come across as cute at the time, and while I respect the history, being born almost 15 years after this was released, these people don't have the same appeal to me as baby boomers.  I mean that as no disrespect, just an observation this film was very clearly made for a certain audience of a certain age at a certain time.  Lots of Stooge films, even classics, have references of their time, so this would be fine if the roles of the local TV hosts were actually funny, but the whole gun fight comes across as very cartoonish to me, and the whole reform angle is extremely unbelievable and hokey. 

      Derita actually comes across OK in this one when he's wearing more than a bra (I won't mention that scene again), mainly because he is not recycling old Curly gags this time, basically just being himself.  I will admit I've warmed up to Derita a little, even though as a comic, he's still not in the same league as his predecessors, Besser included.  Moe and Larry, well, they're just going through the motions at this point; but it's nice to see the give it one final run.  The story itself is nothing special, a typical western yarn.  I'll give props to Emil Sitka for playing three roles here!  The Stooges Columbia story itself basically ends with recycyed gags from the past (meat grinder machine gun, the Calvary never being late in motion picture history, and another unnecessary gratuitous pie throw at the bad guys), and with that, I'm signing off.

      I want to thank every one of you who have participated in these reviews for the past almost four years, especially you regulars.  It has been one Hell of a journey.  I admit some weeks I was more inspired than others, no doubt feeling most inspired when the Stooges were, during the late thirties and early forties run of classics.  You guys who have been doing this every week with me rock, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

6/10

[Shemp_Diesel]

Hats off to Metaldams--what a fantastic run. And I've said this before, I'm a fan who has never tried to watch the stooges in chronological order--knowing that sooner or later--the back of Joe Palma's head and Joe Besser would plague my viewing habits. So, another tip of the cap to you Doug, for this great idea of the weekly episode discussions.

All that out of the way--like I said last week--it's too bad "Daze" couldn't have been the boys last film; for me that would have been a proper sendoff. We've all had discussions in the past about "bad" stooge westerns--but, for the most part--those things generally ran only 16 or 17 minutes. Now, we have what from what I remember is a 90 minute feature to slog through--and, possibly--Norman Maurer trying to be a little to cute and clever with all the inside jokes, plus Derita's rather tedious buffalo horn or whatever the hell they called it.

Probably the least satisying stooge feature outside of the Snow White epic fail, but not horrible either.

5 out of 10 pokes...

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Yes, kudos to Metaldams, well-named since he's been an iron man.
     I thought Outlaws was much better than Daze.  The pace was faster, Derita was amusing and less obese, excepting that one cleavage shot that none of us will ever be able to unsee, and I thought the ending where they rode off into the sunset which turned into a downpour was a great finish.  I can't even remember how Daze finished.  That it truly was the finish to their cinematic career is poignant in retrospect.
     This one has a bunch of contemporary references that were good cheap laughs at the time but are now obscure.  The Japanese Beatle is one, and when Harold Brauer as the bartender turns to the camera and talks with a lot of the words coo-cooed out, that was a take off of a commercial that was ubiquitous at the time wherein they coo-cooed out the name of rival products that the endorser had tried and not liked.  Razors come to mind, but it might have been beer.  It was only 52 years ago, who knows.
     I don't know how kids in other cities reacted, but in Boston it was huge that our guy Major Mudd ( Ed T McDonnell ) , who played Bat Masterson, was in the movie.  He of course hosted the after-school stooges show, and was a pretty funny guy.  Also died very young, if we're talking about the high number of short-lived stooge supporting players.
     The glue-in-the-chair sequence was a good try, even though they were, of course, too old.  I shudder to think what it would have been like had Ed Bernds not been there to direct it.  This is one of those scenes where Moe starts screaming early and thus throws off the whole pace.  Nice to see that Adam West was always that bad an actor.
     Take it all around, I enjoyed this one and find it a nice finish to a great Hollywood story.

[Percy Pomeroy]

Major Mudd is in this movie! I might have to buy this one. Although I watched Major Mudd religiously after school, I was never aware that he was in a Stooge's movie. Major Mudd was the cool alternative to the mainstream kiddie hosts that populated the other local stations at the time. He was, as Cosmo Kramer would say, "a little out there." Rumor had it that mental illness cut short his career. He dressed like an astronaut, so it made sense that his signature tagline was: I'll be blasting you.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

That was Major Mudd, all right.  All the guest star bad guys were the guys all across the country who hosted the after-school stooge shows.  Nice to know someone else remembers.  His career ( and life ) were cut short by diabetes, not mental illness.

[BeatleShemp]

Metaldams rules!!!! Thank you so much, sir for reviewing these shorts/features.  They have been very entertaining, and I loved every review, every insight.  It's been a blast sir. Thank you for your time!!!

[Paul Pain]

Thanks for this incredible journey, metaldams.

[metaldams]

Hey guys, you're all welcome. 

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

One last question ( or bunch of questions ):
     I have always wondered why this was the last feature.  Did this lose money?  Did Daze lose money?  I would be astounded if Orbit lost money, and I know Hercules was a smash.  Did they have a four-picture deal and Columbia didn't renew the option ( if there was an option ) because of the stooge's age, which, given some of Ed Bernds's comments, was perfectly plausible? 
     Here's my conundrum:  As far as I can follow: Have Rocket, Hercules, Orbit, Daze, and Outlaws, all made money.  That statement must, somehow, be wrong.  Something must have lost money somewhere in there to have messed up that delicious little Columbia money machine.  Which one?  Or did each one from Hercules  ( which we know was huge ) on, make a slimmer and slimmer profit until Columbia lost interest?  That would be my guess, but I'm sure that  somebody else on this site ( and I know we have some on here with brains like Napoleon ) who is an expert in profit and loss, would know about this:  Why is Outlaws their last feature?

[Paul Pain]

Per Wikipedia:
Have Rocket: $2,120,000 profits
Snow White: $3,500,000 budget, profit not shown
Hercules: $1,580,000 profits
Orbit: $1,500,000 box office, profits unknown
Daze: $1,000,000 box office, profits unknown
Outlaws: $1,000,000 box office, profits unknown

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Hmmmm... tough to make any decent profit with a B.O. of only 1M.  I guess they just faded away.

[GentWithoutCents]

Did they have a four-picture deal and Columbia didn't renew the option ( if there was an option ) because of the stooge's age, which, given some of Ed Bernds's comments, was perfectly plausible?

Just curious - what comments did  Ed Bernds make about their age?

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

He said they had lost their comic timing due to age and they were harder to direct because of it.

[metaldams]

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/10/celebrities/obit-adam-west/index.html

R.I.P. Adam West

[Freddie Sanborn]

Actress Nancy Kovack will be at the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention in Hunt Valley, MD (just North of Baltimore off I-83). The show is from Sept. 15-17, 2022, tho older stars often stay for just a day or two. Well worth a visit even if meeting Stooge cast members isn’t your thing. Two floors of memorabilia dealers, some of which may sell Stooge cards, toys, stills, advertising paper, etc.
https://www.midatlanticnostalgiaconvention.com/

[Desmond Of The Outer Sanctorum]

As with HERCULES, I watched this one this week when I had some time on my hands. Some thoughts:

Once again, Curly Joe doesn't really do anything all that special. That said, his delivery of such lines as "we're devout cowards" and "too much pizza in my pizzicato" is effective in its own way.

Has anyone else noticed that he's never called "Curly Joe" in this film, but only "Joe"? Is that the case in any other Stooges film he's in?

Anyway, I guess it's always his job to be in charge of the "special magic thing." In HERCULES it was the calm-down pills, and in this film it's the horn. (I notice that, in most cases, the horn sounds that are dubbed in don't line up at all with his horn "playing" movements.)

Speaking of parallels with HERCULES, we once again have a chase scene where the Stooges' horse-drawn vehicle keeps going at the same speed in spite of lost wheels... and where pies are somehow mysteriously available for throwing.

Henry Gibson's character isn't all that funny, but he seems to be there mainly to counter the obvious Indian stereotypes that the film otherwise unapologetically indulges in. The part where he tells Roden to cut out the "broken English" is the best example of this.

The ingredients used in the Tarantula Fizz obviously wouldn't behave as shown if they were mixed together in real life. Perhaps a "secret ingredient" would have made it funnier and more convincing. BTW, what's with the long-standing Stooge joke about booze that was "distilled yesterday" always being ridiculously potent? Does that relate to some real-life alcoholic phenomenon I don't know about?

Given the scenes where we see the work of the various gunslinging outlaws, I'm guessing that this movie has the highest body count of any Stooges film.

Some miscellaneous moments I found funny:
- "Give me an A." "A." (This would have been funnier if it was only used once.)
- The Stooges throw pots, pans and pies at Roden and manage to hit each other as well.
- The scene where Moe glues the outlaws' guns at night is a lot of fun, especially the part with the guy who sleeps with his eyes open.