Monday, October 14, 2013

The Three Stooges Collection, Vol. 6: 1949-1951



Probably the final set of great Stooges shorts
This set contains:

1949
The Ghost Talks
Who Done It?
Hokus Pokus
Fuelin' Around
Malice in the Palace
Vagabond Loafers
Dunked in the Deep

1950
Punchy Cowpunchers
Hugs and Mugs
Do pey Ducks
Love at First Bite
Self-Made Maids
Three Hams on Rye
Studio Stoops
Slaphappy Sleuths
A Snitch in Time

1951
Three Arabian Nuts
Baby Sitters Jitters
Don't Throw That Knife
Scrambled Brains
Merry Mavericks
The Tooth Will Out
Hula La La
Pest Man Wins

These shorts are from the era when the Stooges were comprised of Larry, Moe, and Shemp. These are the probably the last of the great Stooges shorts. With television encroaching upon the motion picture industry, cost cutting measures were soon underway. One such measure taken at Columbia that had already impacted MGM and other studios was the decrease in scope of the short-subject department in...

The Stooges with Shemp at their height. Guaranteed laughs for comedy fans. This pre-release review only mentions the content.
Sony has been doing The Three Stooges proud in its continuing series of restored and remastered DVD editions. Volume 6 is highly recommended for comedy fans and a must for Stoogeheads. Many of the 1949-51 films benefit from witty scripts and direction, and are exceptionally funny.

The best shorts here were produced by Hugh McCollum and directed by Edward Bernds, who soft-pedaled the gratuitous roughhouse and allowed Shemp, Larry, and Moe to improvise freely. This brings new freshness to the standard slapstick format, and shows how professional and resourceful Howard, Fine, and Howard were. (You'll see many amusing instances when a scene is supposed to be over, but Bernds keeps the camera rolling to see what the Stooges will do.) The films also benefit from Columbia's resident stock company of the late 1940s: the lovely Christine McIntyre and Jean Willes, both equally adept at playing sincere heroines and crafty schemers; the suave Kenneth MacDonald, a definitive villain;...

The Combo of Moe, Larry, and Shemp Might have been the BEST!!!
This volume contains some of my favorite Stooges shorts, especially: The Ghost Talks (with the voice of Phil Arnold as Peeping Tom), Malice in the Palace (with the Emir of Schmo), and Three Arabian Nuts (with the Genius of the Lamp). However, I don't agree that this is the best of the Shemp volumes. For me, that title easily goes to Volume 5, with the hilarity of Brideless Groom, Sing a Song of Six Pants, Squareheads of the Round Table, Fiddler's Three, Shivering Sherlocks, and A Crime on Their Hands. These six shorts are EASILY among the best the Stooges ever made. Curly was beloved and was a comedic genius in his own right; however, the more I watch the Shemp shorts, the more I'm thinking that the best combination of Stooges might have been Moe, Larry, and Shemp.

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