Three Missing Links

Larry, Curly, and Moe are cleaning a movie studio office. Of course, they do it poorly. It just so happens that the studio is looking for a gorilla opposite movie star Mirabel Mirabel in an African adventure. The boys claim to be actors and Curly is an animal impersonator. They are hired on the spot. In the jungles of Africa, the boys encounter a real medicine man. Curly buys some love candy to woo Mirabel. Then comes a real lion and a real gorilla.

A lion licking those feet is probably the most impressive stunt in the whole short. That's worth extra for the stuntmen. The slapstick is generally good. The witch doctor is awkward for the modern audience. The gorilla suit does block Curly's great facial expressions. Maybe if he loses the gorilla head, it would have him running around looking for the head and avoiding the real gorilla. Overall, there is good Stooges work here.

"Three Missing Links" ranks among the best of The Three Stooges' many shorts. They're bumbling janitors in a movie studio, and after wrecking a producer's office, they wind up getting hired as actors in a jungle epic to be shot in the wilds of darkest Africa (which was actually a sound stage in the wilds of darkest Burbank). Curly is to play a gorilla who is the love interest of the beautiful Mirabel Mirabel (the stunning but unfortunately little-known Jane Hamilton, who bears a strong resemblance to the equally stunning but better known Virginia Mayo). Moe and Larry are cast as cavemen who are competing with Curly for the charms of Mirabel Mirabel. Problems arise when a real gorilla show up on location.

This is one of the Stooges' most consistently funny outings. It's the first one directed by their producer, Jules White, who tended to go overboard on the violence but shows a much more restrained hand here. The scenes in the producer's office are hilarious, with Curly at the top of his game and the great James C. Morton, who often served as a foil for Laurel and Hardy, serving that purpose here and doing a terrific job of it. The routines on the "set" in Africa are among the Stooges' funniest.

All in all, a first-rate entry in the long-running series and one that holds up well with repeated viewings, something that many of their later entries didn't.

In their previous movie, July 1938's "Three Missing Links," the Stooges find themselves as janitors at a Hollywood studio office. Causing all sorts of mayhem, the Stooges find out producer B. O. Botswaddle (James Morton) is having trouble finding a leading man to play the gorilla in his latest film. When Curly performs his classic "chicken with its head cut off" routine, the producer says Curly is the "dead image of the missing link." The three are hired and travel to a remote location in Africa to film the movie. With Curly in the gorilla suit, they bump into a neighboring tribal cannibalistic medicine man (John Lester Johnson), where he introduces them to his "love candy," a candy laced with an early version of Viagra.

"Three Missing Links" was the first of many of the Stooges movies to be directed by producer Jules White, whose brother Jack had handled several of their previous films. Jules' passion was directing, and when the opportunity came up at Columbia Pictures to direct the Stooges, he immediately assigned himself to the job.

"Three Missing Links" was also the first Stooges film without Ted Healy that featured actor Ray 'Crash' Corrigan, who plays the 'real' gorilla using his own monkey suit. Corrigan's specialty was dressed as a gorilla in a number of movies, including 1934's "Tarzan and His Mate." In 1937, while on a hunting trip with Clark Gable, he came upon some southern California acreage he felt would be perfect for filming movies, especially Westerns because of its varying typography, including lakes, hills and caves. After constructing lodging for the film crew and their support staff as well as a Western-themed ranch for a set, Corrigan rented out his land to a number of film studios. Bob Hope in 1966 purchased the little village named Corriganville, and renamed it Hopetown. The area is now Corriganville Park, containing many hiking trails and historical sites.

As far as the Three Stooges go, this one is a stand alone classic! All family members will enjoy this one. I highly recommend this Three Stooges short.

It's possible that Harry Cohn over at Columbia got wind of the fact that Hal Roach was planning to do an epic about prehistoric times that became One Million BC. So who better to do a spoof on that for a whole lot less money than his favorite comics, The Three Stooges.

After causing the usual amount of chaos and mayhem as janitors at a movie studio, Moe, Larry, and Curly are cast as two prehistoric men and a gorilla. Guess who has the gorilla look about him?

But that's a key part because as the gorilla you get to make love to Jane Hamilton, nicely and scantily clad in animal skins as befits a prehistoric sexpot.

For realism's sake they decide to shoot the thing in the real jungle as real as Hollywood back lot jungles got in those days. Of course when a real gorilla resents the invasion of his turf, the fun really starts.

A lot of the same gags, compacted into Three Missing Links can be found in the later Abbott&Costello feature film, Africa Screams. Best of course is seeing a real battle of wits between Curly and the gorilla.

I'd say they were evenly matched.