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Interesting article on the Stooges

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Offline Waldo Twitchell

Here's a link for a (fairly) recent article about the Stooges.
The author is a self-professed 'Shemp' man.




Pilsner Panther

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That's a really fine article, Waldo, and thanks for posting the link. It's very well-researched, and just scholarly/analytical enough without being too much so. I will take issue with the statement that the Marx Brothers were "smarter" than the Stooges, though; it was just that their style of comedy relied more on verbal humor than physical (except for Harpo, of course). Otherwise, they balance out more-or-less evenly in a number of ways:

Groucho: Verbally aggressive team leader. Moe: Physically aggressive team leader.

Harpo: Great "body language" and facial expression comic. Curly: Ditto.

Zeppo: Along for the ride, never had much to do. Larry: Well, Larry, and the Porcupine was one of a kind.

Chico: Excellent supporting team member and dialect comic, and a bonus that he was a piano whiz. Shemp: Great "everyman" comic with a uniquely neurotic screen persona.

I'll add that the Stooges were a lot more prolific, with their eight or nine shorts a year vs. one feature film a year for the Marxes (with none at all in some years; no releases in 1934 or 1936, for example). Also, the Marx films lost some of their original qualities after their move from Paramount to MGM, mainly because producer Irving Thalberg insisted on adding those romantic sub-plots and (even worse) cornball musical numbers to the scripts. "A Night At the Opera," as funny as it is, is a definite step down in pure laughs from "Monkey Business" and especially "Duck Soup," where the Marxes are the Marxes, undiluted by any of that claptrap.

The Stooges may have worked for the Model A Ford of film studios rather than the Rolls-Royce, but at least Harry Cohn had enough sense to leave them alone and let them do their thing. "Never mess with success" is an excellent principle to follow.

Oh, by the way, Waldo, if you leave something out of one of your posts, you don't have to add a second one just to correct this— just click the "modify" button and you can go back and edit the original post (just in case you didn't know that). After you save the changed post, you'll see the "Last Edit" notice (below), indicating that you've changed it:
« Last Edit: September 09, 2005, 10:57:04 PM by Pilsner Panther »


Offline Waldo Twitchell

Thanks for the clarification about modifying posts.

Yeah, I don't see good in-depth articles that often, but I was surprised it turned up after a quick online search.

I especially liked the author's comment about the Stooges being postmodern before there was a word for it.
I never thought of them in that way, but he makes a good case for it.


Offline Shemoeley Fine

 It was written <<<<< Shemp: Great "everyman" comic with a uniquely neurotic screen persona.  >>>>>

That was no 'screen persona", he was like that in real life, very neurotic and scared of everything. As a teenager still in Brooklyn he drove one time and was in a crash, he never drove again. Amazing since he had lived in So Cal the last 20 some odd years of his life. William Frawley, the one and only Fred Murtz also never drove which he why he lived in hotels in Holywood.

Shemoeley
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