Men in Black

Writing a comment about a Stooges short is a strange business. They are all pretty much the same in the stuff that matters. It's the Laurel and Hardy formula of the destruction of the environment adding in the destruction of each other.

So when you comment on them, either you need to note some quality of the chaos (invasion of the body), some bit of trivia (what it is the parody of) or some note about the story itself. It's a frustrating business in a way, sort of like trying to say something interesting about a MacDonald's hamburger. Or the weather.

In this case, it is the story itself we note. Here we are in the thirties, quite early in the life of Stooge shorts but late in the cycle where you could get away with physical humor itself. So we have comedy acts folding in other comedic devices, like parodies of other movies, word jokes, goofs on stereotypes. Audiences of the day would have recognized the movie "Men in White" that was the source of some of the jokes.

And contemporary audiences would have understood the more pointed joke about the public address system (do they call it that any more?) that wouldn't die.

Ted's Evaluation - 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

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.

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 is one particular Stooge short that actually uses satire in conjunction with slapstick, a rarity. As mentioned, the title and concept for this short was "borrowed" from a feature film from the same year with Clark Gable called "Men In White". It's basically about the trials and tribulations of interns and their sacred cause for "duty and humanity". I saw this recently and almost treated it like the Stooge version because it does take itself a little too seriously. In any case, "Men In Black" is so well written, directed and not to mention original, it didn't borrow a thing from Chaplin or any of the others, that the Motion Picture Academy nominated it for an award as the best short comedy of 1934. Some stinky short called "La Cucaracha" outdid it though and stole the award. Some producer's brother in law must have been on the Academy's voting board. "Men In Black" pokes fun at the whole concept of the medical profession much in the same way that the Marx Bros. always did at this time. May not be a fair comparison but I can see the Marx Bros. in this short. In fact in their feature "A Day At The Races", there is a scene where there's "medical things" going on and they cause anarchy as usual. My guess that this particular short was judged along those lines and hence why it was nominated in the first place. Try this in fact: watch this short first and then watch "Duck Soup" or "Day at the Races" with the Marxes and then see if there isn't the same great quality of comedy.

While mostly routine for the Stooges, "Men in Black" still has some good moments. This time, the boys have somehow managed to graduate from medical school, and they are working in a hospital, where their performances as doctors are about what you would expect them to be. The humor in this one mostly mostly relies on a set of recurring gags, with the best one being the Stooges' frantic entrances and exits to and from the office of the hospital's superintendent. It doesn't have the sustained laughs of their better comedies, but there are some funny parts that make it worth a look.