Watch out for your eyes! Moe’s fingers are coming through the screen to get you. Unlike any of the preceding boxsets, The Three Stooges Collection: Volume Seven, 1952-1954 dares to break the fourth wall and bring you into the mayhem of Moe, Larry and Shemp. There’s is a world of slaps, pokes and bonks coming at you. Every innocent item is a weapon ready to be hurled through the video tube. Prepare for the glory of Stooges in 3-D. You might want to wear safety googles over your 3-D glasses.
Only two of their shorts dared to drag you into their violent world. “Spooks!” and “Pardon My Backfire” were created to accompany 3-D feature films. “Spooks!” has them as a trio of detectives hired to find a kidnapped girl. They suspect she’s being held inside a haunted house. Turns out, a mad scientist has her. He plans on doing evil things to her and a giant gorilla. It’s up to the Stooges to find the secret room and save the girl. Their only real weapon is a pile of pies. “Pardon My Backfire” is garage based bashing. The Stooges celebrate their tenth anniversary of being engaged to a set of sisters. However their future father-in-law is tired of waiting for the wedding. He wants them to make enough cash so they can quit stringing along his daughters. They go back to work at their garage hoping to fix enough cars to get them out of the dog house. Bad luck drives in when three escaped cons and their moll drive in with a car that needs a quick fix. Will they survive the attack? Will you survive being caught between the hoods and the Stooges?
When these 3-D two reelers were originally presented, it was as part of a Polaroid filter process that required two prints to be projected at once. Since that can’t be replicated on television screens, these two shorts have been redone so you can watch them with red and green filters on glasses to get the sense of depth. The downside of switching up the effect is there is a bit of edge fuzziness on these shorts. They aren’t nearly as sharp and tight as anticipated. Perhaps the 3-D would work better on Blu-ray. You’ll still get an eyeful of action with pies, cakes and Moe’s fingers coming at you. There are also 2-D versions of “Spooks!” and “Pardon My Backfire.”
The other twenty shorts are what many consider the last great batch of Shemp adventures. Columbia kept slashing the budgets of their 2 reel films to the point where not only where they reusing old scripts, but snipping stunts from years before. “A Missed Fortune” remakes the Curly era “Healthy, Wealthy and Dumb.” If you pause at the right time, you’ll spot footage of Curly from that title. In this version, Shemp wins $50,000 from a radio show. The boys decide to live the high life in the Hotel Costa Plente. A trio of gold diggers want a piece of their winnings. Of course there’s a bigger gold digger eyeing Shemp’s wallet. “Listen, Judge” is a classic case of a society woman not asking for real references as the Stooges go from fixing a doorbell to serving Vernon Dent’s birthday dinner. It’s classic Dent losing his cool at the trio. His final appearance with the Stooges is “Knutzy Knights.” While he appears in later shorts, it’s only through old footage. “Income Tax Sappy” has them set up an income tax service bent on cheating the IRS. However they pick the wrong clients for this new venture. “Scotched in Scotland” remakes “The Hot Scots.” The boys are detectives with a major job guarding a castle in Scotland. The staff is robbing the place.
The Three Stooges Collection: Volume Seven, 1952-1954 captures the Shemp era at time when the trio was working at full speed even as the budgets got slashed. Their physical interplay over rode the lack of extra sets or elaborate stunts. The 3-D shorts were an upswing for the trio with a higher production standard. It’s a shame Shemp’s time was marred by cost cutting at the studio. He could have done even more with Moe and Larry. For those keeping score, there’s 16 more shorts with Shemp before we get the final 16 with Joe Besser.
The Shorts
“A Missed Fortune,” “Listen, Judge,” “Corny Casanovas,” “He Cooked His Goose,” “Gents in a Jam,” “Three Dark Horses,” “Cuckoo on a Choo Choo,” “Up in Daisy’s Penthouse,” “Booty and the Beast,” “Loose Loot,” “Tricky Dicks,” “Spooks!” (3-D short), “Pardon My Backfire” (3-D short), “Rip, Sew and Stitch,” “Bubble Trouble,” “Goof on the Roof,” “Income Tax Sappy,” “Musty Musketeers,” “Pals and Gals,” “Knutzy Knights,” “Shot in the Frontier” and “Scotched in Scotland,”
The video for the first half of the shorts is 1.33:1 full frame. Starting with “Spooks!,” the presentation is 1.85:1 anamorphic with a few exceptions. The transfers are sharp and detailed. You can see the boinks and bonks on the Stooges. The audio is Dolby Digital Mono brings out the damage.
Two Pairs of 3-D Glasses have the red and green filters. This means you can’t use your regular red and blue glasses.
The Three Stooges Collection: Volume Seven, 1952-1954 brings the Stooges not only into your living room, but into your face. Even after being a Stooge fanatic for so long and watching them on TV, it was a revelation to finally get a chance to see them through the red and green tinted glasses. Moe, Larry and Shemp at this point were the Tinkers to Evers to Chance of physical violence.
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment presents The Three Stooges Collection: Volume Seven, 1952-1954. Starring: Moe Howard, Shemp Howard and Larry Fine. Boxset contents: 22 shorts on 2 DVDs. Released on DVD: November 10, 2009. Available at Amazon.com
