Hombres de negro

A criticism that I've heard of the Three Stooges is that - unlike Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, and the Marx Brothers, all of whom treated the underdog with dignity - they make it look as if the underdog deserves to be the underdog. As long as we understand that, it's easy to laugh at the gags that abound in "Men in Black", as the trio become doctors and cause a series of mishaps in the hospital (namely with the superintendent's door). This short received an Academy Award nomination for Best Short Subject - Comedy (now Best Live Action Short Film) but lost to "La Cucaracha".

Basically, it makes no pretense about what it is. A good time to be had.

This belongs in their top tier, although there were others, such as Micro-Phonies and Punch Drunks, that were more deserving of Oscar nominations than this one. But if nothing else, the recurring loudspeaker announcement, "Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard," followed by Curly's "Woo woo woo woo," makes this a classic on two levels. First, it symbolizes all that the Stooges represent; my daughter loves to repeat the announcement when she is in the middle of doing something silly. Second, the absurdity of these three as physicians in a hospital; I imagine the terror I would feel if I were a real patient in a real hospital and heard this announcement over the loudspeaker. Throughout this short, you hear that announcement and you know that something horrible is about to happen, and the loudspeaker voice stays with you for months afterward.

This Oscar-nominated Three Stooges short was possibly a spoof on the Clark Gable hospital drama MEN IN WHITE (1934). The insane comedy style of the film is pretty much influenced by The Marx Bros. – but actually anticipates their own assault on the medical profession in A DAY AT THE RACES (1937)! The Stooges go to their designated operating rooms via horses, racing-cars and the like; the operation on their own boss sees them using an electric drill and then stitching him up with all the various instruments of the profession still inside! As ever, the comic trio fall back too often on slapping each other around (not to mention fooling around with some girl, in this case a dumb nurse); actually, the best gag revolves around the glass on the boss’ office door (which is smashed every time our heroes leave his company, since they’re constantly being called to explain their unethical behavior – seeing them coming one more time, the janitor who’s forever replacing the glass anticipates them by breaking it himself!). Incidentally, both director McCarey and screenwriter Felix Adler worked contemporaneously on the (more sympathetic but no less havoc-ridden) films of Laurel & Hardy.

I've just watched this, the third in the Three Stooges series of shorts for Columbia Pictures and the only one nominated for an Academy Award (it didn't win). In this one, Drs. Howard (Moe), Fine (Larry), and Howard (Curley as his name was spelled at the time) are running amok at the hospital as they dedicate themselves "for duty and humanity". God help us all if there's anyone like them in real life! Anyway, there's plenty of hilarious running gags and lines that the pace never stops for one minute and when it does, the whole thing is over just like that. Among highlights: a scatterbrained nurse (Jeanie Roberts) perplexing the Stooges-even Curley-who also provides some comic hiccups and a crazy patient (Billy Gilbert who I usually associate with Laurel & Hardy) who sees birds and rats. Add in regular stock player Bud Jamison and a "female" little person patient among others and you've got a good idea of what to expect from Men in Black. So on that note, I highly recommend this short.

As mentioned in Moe Howard's book MOE HOWARD & THE 3 STOOGES (Citadel Press, 1977), MEN IN BLACK (1934) an early Three Stooges short made at Columbia Pictures was a take off on MEN IN WHITE. "For duty and humanity" is a phrase used numerous times throughout this twenty minute comedy and is a central theme in the Clark Gable/Myrna Loy film which was released earlier that same year. MEN IN BLACK, which contains another reoccurring phrase (which many Three Stooges fans will remember immediately) "Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard", was nominated for the Academy Award in 1934 for best short. An abbreviated version of this short was reenactment in the ABC-TV movie THE THREE STOOGES (1999) which was produced by Mel Gibson, a well known Stooges enthusiast.