Just watched this again for the first time in years. It’s.....OK. All the MGM shorts I’ve seen, and this includes the ones with Healy, were excuses to include unused musical numbers from features, and this short is no exception. Going in knowing what to expect helps. This is before anybody knew what to do with Curly, but he does show a bit more screen charisma than his partner Bobby Callahan regardless. Callahan would have small roles in four Stooge shorts before passing away in 1938 at the young age of 42. Curly makes a good facial expression and can deliver a line, but he’s not fully fleshed out like he’ll be at Columbia. It’s proto Curly.
As for George Givot, he was a Russian born Greek dialect comedian who would team with Charles Judels at Vitaphone in shorts much better than this. Some of them have Shemp in support, he later did Disney voice overs and lived until 1984, so he had a long life and fruitful career.
The technicolor is of interest, but really, MGM could not make straight comedy shorts nor did they really attempt to based on what I’ve seen. So yeah, I just accept this for what it is rather than what it isn’t. Not the kind of thing that would draw me into old comedy shorts, but of interest once a fan.