You Nazty Spy!

An excellent Stooge short, and one of their best. Like everybody else said, it was very gutsy of the Stooges to make fun of Hitler in the pictures since nobody else had done it yet. I can't believe this wasn't nominated for an Academy Award like MEN IN BLACK (which I don't think is that great) was. Moe's Hitler impression is simply BRILLIANT, and the man deserves more recognition for it. This short is filled with hilarious, non-stop verbal puns and funny one-liners. One of the few Stooge shorts that dared to do this instead of relying almost fully on physical humor (TRICKY DICKS is another one filled with puns and one-liners, and that's also a great short), which proves the Stooges are excellent verbal comics as well as physical. This was sequeled a year later with the Stooges as I'LL NEVER HEIL AGAIN.

This was also the very first Stooge short from the early 40's, which was the Stooges' classic, Golden Age period.

While the Three Stooges did tend to recycle jokes (Curly with the spring stuck to his rear end appeared often), "You Natzy Spy" is a complete turnaround. While not abandoning the prerequisite slapstick, the fact that this was filmed during World War II (albeit before America's participation, which at this point was almost inevitable anyway) starring three Jewish actors is stunning. From the Hitler moustache that Moe wears (which he removes to shave underneath and, when it is stolen, he yells, "gimme back my personality") to the name "Moronica" to the caricatures of Mussolini and (apparently) Hirohito, to the Axis world leaders battling over the world by throwing a globe around the room, to plenty more potshots at Hitler and his allies, "You Natzy Spy" is hilarious, but it really does have that underlying knowledge that, had Hitler won, the boys would have certainly met their early deaths. The guts and patriotism shown by the boys proves that they took their work seriously to say the least, risking their lives for their craft.

I've been a fan of The Three Stooges for a long time, and in my opinion this short is one of the best they ever made. "You Natzy Spy!" does a great job of poking fun at Hitler and the Natzi's and much of the politics in Europe at the time. Moe looks so much like Hitler it's scary, a very funny film.

At a time in Hollywood when the movie colony was hesitant still to critique Nazi Germany even obliquely, three comedians of Jewish ancestry did a wonderful job in sending up the whole Nazi gang for a few belly laughs.

This Three Stooges short You Nazty Spy anticipated Charlie Chaplin's more famous The Great Dictator by several months. Chaplin might have gotten a few ideas from the boys, but their film was strictly slapstick without any serious message underpinning the short.

Moe makes one great Hitler and Larry and Curly aid and abet as the field marshal and propaganda minister. They do come to an end that I really wish that Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels had come.

This one shows the Stooges, the writers, and the studio all in top form. The writing is very clever, in fact rather Marxist, that is Marx Brothers type. Moe as a "Hitler type" dictator and Curly as a "mussolini", they just can't miss. Curly even does a "Bob Hope" when he turns to the camera and in reference to some dialog between Moe and Larry says, "They're nuts!" In comparison to Chaplin's overzealous take on 'ol Shicklegruber, this is much funnier. Cahplin at this point, or more accurately from about the mid 1920's onward, tends to get too much pathos involved with otherwise great comedy. His comedies and especially his feature films always seemed to be attempting to send the world a message or moral. Much like the Our Gang shorts produced during their floundering MGM period. The Stooges version is played strictly for laughs and well it should be. If you're going to play someone as rotten as Hitler, than make a total ass out of him without any appearances of "having seen the light" like Chaplin does at the end of his "Great Dictator". The Stooges are all fired up in this one and I'll bet Chaplin was too, considering the Stooge's version was released before Chaplin's. "Hail, Hail, Hailstone! Wahoo!"