The potential is there, but The Three Stooges as we know them aren’t in full swing yet. There are two reasons for this, MGM and Ted Healy. MGM just couldn’t bring themselves to make a straight comedy short. It’s almost like such a pursuit is beneath them, hence the need to pad these things with cutting room floor musical numbers. I realize there is an audience for this stuff, I get the choreography aspect, but to a guy like me, all I see is a sea of pretty legs moving in synchronicity to some song I would never voluntarily listen to. It’s basically padding and a way for MGM to show what big productions they have. The comic gods doth frown. Bah!
As far as Healy himself, he can deliver a comic monologue and comes across as a guy who likes a woman or ten and delivering a slap or ten. A bit more adult than The Three Stooges at Columbia. He can sing a song too, as can The Three Stooges themselves and with what one sees here, you’d have to wonder how they’d all fare in a Paramount style Marxian comic musical number. Healy is interesting, but being the head guy, the other Stooges become more alike and Moe is the one who is least like his future persona. Healy, like I said, is interesting, but he’s not angry Moe interesting. When Healy gets the musical bonk on the head to Curly, he’s more casual than Moe would be and The Three Stooges all act in unison to the violence instead of being deeper individual personas we all know and love. In other words, the chemistry is totally different.
Still, there’s a ton of energy in this thing and without the Moe persona, the boys are fun to watch in their own right. We do get future Columbia short bits like, “little fly upon the wall” and the “$2-you don’t know my father.” This makes me wonder how much of what we see in the Columbia shorts are holdovers from the Healy stage days. I’m sure not every bit they did with Healy on stage was filmed with Healy. It is interesting seeing the boys in technicolor and Bonnie Bonnell deserves a mention as the attractive female straight role to Ted and the boys.
Historically interesting and always entertaining when Ted and the boys are on screen. It would have been nice to see the four at Hal Roach, Vitaphone or some other studio not afraid to make straight forward comedy shorts, but I’m still glad this exists.
