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It was said of the Three Stooges that they stuck to shorts because they couldn't carry a feature length film. Now with a 70+ minute length, Rockin' in the Rockies barely qualifies as a feature film. Still it might have been interesting if they had left the Stooges on their own out in the wild west.

Moe plays a character named Shorty Williams who lives, maybe a better word is mooches, off cousin Jay Kirby at his ranch. He's got a cash flow problem, needing some capital to go prospecting which is his first love. In come Larry and Curly who he manages to bilk out of their funds and makes them partners.

Before long a couple of stranded show girls, Mary Beth Hughes and Gladys Blake, and a quartet of cowboys who'd rather be on Broadway all get in on the scheme. Add to that a traveling Broadway talent agent played by Tim Ryan who's come west to get away from auditions and you've pretty much got Rockin' in the Rockies.

The Stooges do have their moments, especially pretending to be exterminators to try and get Tim Ryan to stay at the ranch, but I think Harry Cohn made a mistake in not letting them have more of the story. This might have led to feature films for them.

Still the film is to treasured by Three Stooges fans everywhere of every age. Watch the film and get in touch with your inner Stooge.

I saw this film on TCM with a slightly different attitude. I recently viewed a DVD set called "SHOWTIME USA;" this was a compendium of circa 1950 low budget musicals from Lippert Productions. ROCKIES, though a Columbia film, share some of the same musical cast seen in the later Lippert movies (including a subliminal Snub Pollard appearance) and it's the musical element, so snidely dismissed here, that I find the most worthwhile! My God, you have Spade Cooley, the Hoosier Hotshots, the charming Mary Beth Hughes, etc. So even if it's musically not to your taste, it's still a valuable thing to have on film. For Stooge-centrics there's obviously way better Stooge stuff elsewhere, but this film definitely has its own merits.

If you are looking for a comedy that has a substantial plot, this one isn't it.

If you are looking for a movie that features the Three Stooges doing their usual performance and patter, this one isn't it.

Rockin' In the Rockies is a typical Columbia House movie that showcases Columbia Records musical talent and offers a little bit of a plot as an excuse. In what can be described as a glorified MTV video, Moe Howard plays a would-be prospector (more of a con artist) who partners with Larry and Curly, two vagrants who wander into town and need jobs before the Sheriff throws them into jail. Enter Mary Beth Hughes and Gladys Blake as two failed saloon singers determined to leave the west for New York. Moe falls for Mary Beth and invites the girls back to the ranch. The singing group, the Hoosier Hotshots, play ranch hands and the Cappy Barra Boys and Spade Cooley make appearances as well.

Although the Three Stooges were an odd choice for casting (apparently Cary Grant wasn't available), Moe does a surprisingly good job as a character actor in this movie. Mary Beth Hughes is his primary comic foil, adding a hint of "war between the sexes" element to what is pretty much one of Columbia Picture's signature "screwball comedies." The movie will disappoint Stooge fans who expect the familiar routines and writing of either Felix Adler or Jules White, and those who despise country-western music will faint, but overall the movie qualifies as a pleasant serving of chewing gum for the mind.

If you are a Stooges fan, like me, you should appreciate anything that they have done, even if it's something as corny as this feature. It could've been planned a lot better and give the boys better material to work with. I would've rather seen them in a comedy/mystery instead of a comedy/western/musical. Why the music ? At least though, they did get top billing- sort of, but why not use Moe's real name. The theater going audience knew who he was. But they used Larry and Curly's real names. Whatever. But just a few correction to the Reviewer before me, this was NOT the only feature with Curly and the short with the similar name is Rockin "THRU" the Rockies as opposed to "IN" the Rockies. The other features with Curly are pretty good and are: TIME OUT FOR RHYTHM, where they are not the stars, but do get a lot of screen time. Swing Parade of 1946, The Captain Hates the Sea, Turn Back the Clock, Fugitive Lovers, Myrt & Marge, Start Cheering, My Sister Eileen (cameo). They may not have gotten top billing, but they were in them. There might be others, but I think I've proven my point. But like all Stooges fans, even the worst of Stooge films are the most sought after because of their rarity and not much late-night TV play. We can only hope to see them via the "collectors underground". So if you get a chance to see ROCKIN' IN THE ROCKIES, appreciate it - if not for the content but for the Stooges commitment & contribution to the movie industry !

A few months earlier the studio released the only feature film where The Three Stooges with Curly were the headliners in April 1945's "Rockin' in the Rockies." Not to be confused with the Stooges' earlier short film, 1940's "Rockin' Thru the Rockies," this full-length movie was shot in early December 1944, a few weeks after "Idiots Deluxe," but was released three months earlier than the short. For the feature film Columbia Pictures decided to depart from their highly popular Stooges shorts and assigned a totally different staff of writers along with director Vernon Keays, who never handled the three before. The results were disappointing to their faithful fans, prompting Columbia to think twice about headlining another Stooges feature film again. But once their short film series ended in the late 1950s, the studio, seeing the Stooges resurgence on television when their older episodes hit the airwaves, produced the successful 1959's "Have Rocket, Will Travel," setting the stage for a few new Stooges feature films in the early 1960s.

The failure of the musical "Rockin' in the Rockies" was mainly because of writers Johnny Grey and Benton Cheney's decision to cast Moe as a stranger separate from his usual sidekicks Larry and Curly, creating an awkward interchange between the three on the screen. Moe even appears without his trademark mop-top haircut, wearing his hair pushed back. "This flick is only a little over an hour long, yet it features even LESS Stooges action than a 20 minute short," complained film reviewer Mitch Lovell. Moe plays Shorty Williams, a shyster living in the house of his cousin Rusty (Jay Kirby). He bamboozles a pair of aspiring singers, June McGuire (Mary Beth Hughes) and Betty Vale (Gladys Blake) along with the four band members of the Ranch Hands (The Hoosier Hotshots) and Curly and Larry to put up the money to mine for gold on the ranch's property.

Without Moe patented slapstick, Larry carries out the duties of doling the physicality on Curly. Stooges' biographer Jon Solomon noticed, "This leaves Larry as the toughie - not his best persona." The writers did have one particularly funny scene when Curly and Larry belly up to the saloon's bar. Curly orders a "Tin Roof" drink. The bartender is confused by what's in before Curly tells him. When it comes time to pay, Curly replies, "I don't pay for a Tin Roof... it's on the house!" After filming wrapped on "Rockin' in the Rockies," Moe, who noticed his brother's lack of energy and failing health, convinced Curly to get tested by doctors. He self-admitted to Santa Barbara, California's Cottage Hospital in late January 1945. The medical staff saw the actor suffered from obesity, had bleeding in the retina in both eyes accompanied by high blood pressure. Curly was told he needed rest, and lots of it.

I gave this a four purely out of its historical context. It was considered lost for many years until it popped up out of the blue on Showtime in the early nineties.

Moe is the straight man and Larry and Curly act as a duo. Spade Cooley has a couple of numbers. I guess it had something to do with working on a ranch. I'm not quite sure because the plot was so minimal nothing really sticks in my memory. I vaguely remember it being a western musical comedy. Even the Stooge's seem to be going through the motions. Overall there's nothing much really to recommend here.

If you're not a Stooge fan then don't bother. If you are a Stooge fan, then stick with the shorts.

Moe Howard actually plays a non-stooge: "Shorty" Williams, a ranch foreman, but one who really wants to be a prospector.

He does a good job, too.

This movie is a must for Stooges fans, if only because it is not typical, but it is so unusual it's a must for any movie fan.

Besides, Mary Beth Hughes is in it. Someone with whom I was not familiar, Gladys Blake, but whose lovely legs make her very watchable, played her performing partner, Betty. She didn't act long, but had many gigs.

Most of the plot is to give excuses for musical numbers, and some of the numbers are pretty good, especially "Wahoo." Though Ken Trietsch was a guest on a TV show I directed, I hadn't realized the Hoosier Hotshots had been so active in movies. They actually had a lot of talent, as both musicians and actors. This film was a revelation.

Some of the alleged comedy was done poorly, and can't be called good slapstick. Probably the director should be blamed.

Still, this is a lot of fun, is a must for Stooges fans, a must for movie historians, a must for fans of Western Swing and for -- a term I think I coined -- Midwestern Swing, and a good time for anyone just looking for pleasant fun.

The Three Stooges in a feature length western comedy-musical? Perhaps "Rockin' in the Rockies" was meant to combine the Stooges comedy short with the western musical, in a matinée; if so, this was a pleasant way to break up a Saturday afternoon. Jay Kirby (as Rusty) is a handsome young hero; and, Mary Beth Hughes (as the blonde June) and Gladys Blake (as the brunette Betty) are pretty women. The Hoosier Hotshots are a harmonious group; their songs are quite tuneful; however, this is the 1940s, not the 1950s, so the film doesn't exactly "rock". There are a few laughs; but the Stooges' brand of humor is more subdued than usual. The talking horse is also underutilized.

**** Rockin' in the Rockies (4/17/45) Vernon Keays ~ Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard, Mary Beth Hughes

Having just seen this on TMC, it's fresh in my mind. It's obvious that while the stooges are featured stars, they don't really run the show. First, they're broken into 2 groups - Moe, as "Shorty" and Larry and Curly as a pair of vagrants, so there's not a whole lot of full team work. The love story that fuels the plot is uninteresting, the two ladies are the only ones with any acting ability, there's another group of musical stooges that are unfunny, unless you consider their attempts at being funny to be sadly buffoonish. The music is tiresome, they drive cars to the ranch and then depend on horses, the dorky western wear is silly, and there's an awful lot of the movie with no stooges on camera. By the way, this is obviously after Curley's first stroke, and his reduced energy level is clear. Vernon Dent appears early on in an uncredited role. I loved everything these guys ever did, including all the non-Curley stuff, but this little dogie is pretty lousy.

Not even the most ardent stooge fan could possibly like the movie, (I one of them) the stooges just aren't given any material to work with. It is really a shame too because this is the only feature length movie the stooges did with Curly, and this one effort by them is painfully unfunny, when it could have had great potential. Awful musical numbers don't help any either. The short they did with the same title has more laughs.

This is the only feature film The Stooges starred in, with Curley. I had never heard of it until recently, assuming (except for cameos), all the features were made late in The Stooges career with Joe DeRita.

The explanation as to why they never made any feature films with Curley has been a combination of: 1) Columbia would not support it or 2) Moe did not believe they would do well in feature films.

Done right, The Stooges would have been great in feature films. That did not happen with Rockin' in the Rockies. And the result is a mediocre musical/ western/ comedy.

What went wrong:

It appears that this was not written for The Stooges and they were just plugged in existing roles: Moe as one of the lead characters and Larry and Curley as "comic relief". As a result, there are limit "Three" Stooge moments, instead we have the "Two" Stooges (Larry and Curley). It rarely works well.

There are way too many musical numbers and most of them are nothing special.

Too many other actors attempt to get laughs and most of those attempts are not funny..

The plot is a mess, no big deal for a Stooge short, but it does not work in a feature.

On the plus side:

Casting Vernon Dent was spot on: add one point to the rating.

Mary Beth Hughes brings class and beauty: add one point to the rating.

The novelty of this being the only Curley feature: add one point to the rating.

That get us to a Rating of Five.

After many years of only reading about this, I finally got to check the DVD of this movie from the library-the only feature during Curly Howard's lifetime he got to star (as opposed to supporting other players) in with his brother Moe and Larry Fine-The Three Stooges. Initially, Moe is separate from them (In fact, he plays Shorty while the other two are under their own names) but they get together soon enough. The plot is pretty much a mess so I didn't pay too much attention to that and just enjoyed their antics. Many of the musical acts were also enjoyable like that of the Hoosier Hot Shots-who I previously was familiar with when hearing their recording of "I Like Banannas (Because They Have No Bones)" on an album of Dr. Demento's collection of novelty songs-as well as the Cappy Berra Boys and Spade Cooley-King of Western Swing-and a couple of female singers, Mary Beth Hughes and Gladys Blake. What can I say, as a longtime Stooges fan, I simply couldn't get enough of Rockin' in the Rockies!

Conventional wisdom has it that while The Three Stooges were tops in short subjects, they couldn't carry a feature film. "Rockin' in the Rockies" should not be entered into evidence one way or the other, because the truth is Atlas couldn't have carried this thing. It's an oleo of popular Western music acts, some comedic (occasionally intentionally) and Stooge burlesque routines, all linked together with cornball situations, designed to try and make people forget there was a war going on for an hour or so. Except for one scene in which they pretend to be termite exterminators, the Stooges don't even act as a trio here. Moe (with normal haircut) plays a character named Shorty, and serves as comic relief for the Western scenes, while Larry and Curly act as a team. Oddly, though, the don't act like the Larry and Curly we know from the shorts. Larry takes on Moe's traditional role while Curly is subdued (and clearly ailing), and almost plays it British! One can only assume that the script was not written with them in mind. (Their gag appearance in 1942's "My Sister Eileen" had been a last minute addition, so maybe the same thing happened here.) If only Columbia had allowed the people from their short subject unit to write and maybe even direct ("Rockin'"s director Vernon Keays can't even make his shots match) there might have been some energy to it. As it is, the film is pretty much a long hour and seven minutes of bad acting, so-so music, and unfunny comedy.

Rockin in the Rockies (1945)

* (out of 4)

Incredibly bad film is certainly the worst thing I've seen The Three stooges in, although it's more like The Two Stooges here. Moe, acting as a solo, cons a bunch of people into looking for gold while some of them also have plans to make it on Broadway. This is an incredibly uneven film that never really seems to know what it wants to do. There's the stuff with Moe playing the con man yet this never goes anywhere and at times it takes a back seat the the Broadway stuff. Then, at times, the film forgets all about the con and centers on the music. I think I laughed a total of two times throughout this film and by the forty-minute mark I was ready to pull my eyes out. The music itself isn't that good so when you mix that with the lack of laughs then you're stuck with a really bad film. Larry and Curly are wasted playing the dumb ones. Now that Columbia has issued The Three Stooges shorts on DVD there's really no reason to pay this film any attention.

I am a huge Stooges fan but the one and only redeeming quality this movie has is that Curley is in it. Done long before he started drinking heavily he is his classic self in this (and Larry's not bad either). Moe's character is a straight part (mostly) and this movie would be better named "The Curley and Larry Movie". Not that any of the Stooges movies were very good (in my opinion), but as one commenter here said, how sad it is that this movie had real potential. The casting was good, it was well directed, filmed, and edited, but the story line tried to be about something serious with just some Stooges antics and musical numbers (which I guess were good back then) thrown in. The best thing you can do for yourself during this movie should you actually believe that it has to be better than mowing the lawn and taking out the trash (which is subject to debate) is to wait for Curley/Larry scenes and sleep or find something in the kitchen to eat during the rest of it.

While technically this film stars the Three Stooges, you'd barely notice it as instead of comedy, the film is more a limp song and dance film that looks a lot like a country-western version of "The Ed Sullivan Show". This is because it truly looks like adding the trio was more an afterthought--and the emphasis was certainly NOT on comedy. Instead, the film is all about some folks out west who have ambitions to become stars and spend much of the film annoying a poor guy on vacation in the hope that he'd take them to Hollywood. As a result, you hear LOTS of musical numbers--and all during this time you keep wondering when the Stooges are going to get a chance to do their stuff. There supposedly is more plot to the film than this--but there really isn't. None of ever gets funny and the film is simply dreadful--with washed out performances by Stooges who seem to have no idea why they are there in the first place. Amazingly dull.

The 3 Stooges had potential for some good feature films comparable to those starring teams such as Abbott & Costello and others. Sad that in their Curley era this grade B matinee film is all that Columbia offered them. They could've done some good feature length stuff if given a fair chance. Still mediocre as it may be this is a fun movie to watch.