THE THREE STOOGES: Vol. 6 (Columbia 1949 - 51) Sony Home Entertainment

The Three Stooges Collection Volume Six is a curious potpourri of hilarity and misfires. This 2-disc set picks up the trio’s tenure from 1949 to 1951, two years after Curly Howard’s death and featuring his replacement, brother, Shemp – usually considered the lesser stooge. Important to note, Shemp was actually part of the original act, all the way back when the boys played Vaudeville. Shemp’s big break, landing a solo contract at Universal, meant Moe and Larry needed to find a new face to fill the void. That face belonged to Moe’s other brother, Curly.  What makes the stooges tenure with Shemp appealing – as opposed to the pair of Joes (literally - Joe Besser, then Joe DeRita) later to fill in after Shemp was unexpectedly felled by a fatal heart attack in 1955, was that Shemp never tried to ‘be’ Curly. He didn’t look like Curly, didn’t act like him, and certainly, came with his own seasoned storefront of antics. And while the stooges – sans Curly – undeniably lost something in this transition, when all the pistons were firing, the stooges with Shemp worked out as a marvelous team.

24 short subjects comprise this set, beginning with The Ghost Talks – the boys, hired as a trio of movers and arriving at a drafty castle on a stormy night to remove a suit of armor, only to discover it is possessed by the playful spirit of the late Peeping Tom. In Who Done It? an aged millionaire (Emile Sitka) is kidnapped by a trio of thugs who plan to do away with the stooges - assigned as private eyes to investigate his disappearance. Hokus Pokus is all about an insurance fraud scam that goes horribly awry, while Fueling Around finds the boys unwittingly abducted after a trio of thugs involved in political espionage believe Larry is the inventor of rocket fuel. One of the stooges best-remembered shorts, Malice in the Palace finds the boys as proprietors of a small café who end up invading an Arabian palace after the Emir of Schmo (Johnny Kascier) steels the Rootin-Tootin’ diamond. Vagabond Loafers is a painfully bad remake of the stooges own A Plumbing We Will Go, utilizing whole portions of stock footage from that previous effort while attempting to recreate the classic moment of building a watery prison out of leaky pipes. Dunked in the Deep, finds Larry, Moe and Shemp as stowaways on a ship after their Russian neighbor turns out to be a spy who has stolen some ‘top secret’ documents. In Punchy Cowpunchers, the boys must infiltrate the Dillon Gang – a ruthless sect of desperadoes in the old west. Hugs and Mugs finds the boys the unwitting victims of a trio of sultry female jewel thieves. Dopey Dicks is a riotous race against time after an heiress has been kidnapped for ransom. Love at First Bite has Larry and Moe attempting to dispose of Shemp’s body after they erroneously assume, he has been poisoned with moonshine liquor. Self-Made Maids tops out the offerings on Disc One; the stooges cast, not only themselves, but their fiancées and their own father.

On Disc Two we get Three Hams on Rye – the stooges employed by a Broadway producer to keep a tabloid news hound at bay. In Studio Stoops, an actress disappears right under the stooges’ watchful eye, forcing the boys to craft a publicity squib to set the record straight. Slaphappy Sleuths has the boys masquerading as gas station attendants in order to foil a crime wave. A Snitch in Time has the boys making a special delivery to a den of thieves. In Three Arabian Nuts, Shemp discovers a genie in a bottle who will grant him any wish. Baby-Sitter Jitters finds the boys looking after a belligerent boy while his mother goes out for the evening. In Don’t Throw That Knife, the stooges are a trio of census takers who have little luck procuring information from the people they visit. Shemp is released from a sanitarium in Scrambled Brains, but his delusions may not be entirely cured. Merry Mavericks is a remake of Phony Express; the boys, forced to do battle with a notorious gang in a lavish mansion. The Tooth Will Out employs the trio as dentists who end up removing more than a tooth from their clients. Hula-la-la casts Larry, Moe and Shemp as dance instructors to some natives who decide they would rather shrink their heads than learn to samba. Finally, there is Pest Man Wins with the boys as a trio of exterminators.

Many of the gags in these shorts have been reworked from better days with Curly. When the scripts allow Shemp to be his own character, the comedy is more meaningful and enjoyable. However, when he attempts to emulate his late brother’s legacy the results are less than stellar. ‘Less than stellar’ is a fairly accurate assessment of the transfers offered up here. While Sony Home Entertainment has taken the time to remaster many of the early stooge shorts with Curly represented on Volumes 1 through 4, Volume 5 released earlier in the year hinted that perhaps the studio did not hold the rest of the trio’s legacy in such high regard. The shorts included in Volume 6 suffered from film grain that just seems to be artificially elevated, and, age-related artifacts, baked into these dupe masters. Overall, the image is frequently soft, while the gray scale appears to have suffered from some minor contrast boosting. Overall, these shorts look superior to anything we have seen when they were broadcast on television. But that should not be the barometer of how good they could have looked if just a bit more time and care had been employed to remaster them fully from – if possible – whatever surviving nitrate elements exist. The audio on all is 1.0 Dolby Digital mono and adequate for this presentation. There are no extras.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

3

VIDEO/AUDIO

3

EXTRAS

0