Woman Haters

Woman Haters is far from the best of the Three Stooges, but it is a nice start to the Columbia shorts and does offer a unique and interesting thing or two. The plot sees the boys joining the Woman Haters Club - a club that prohibits its members from carrying on with women. But no sooner than they become members, Larry (they actually have character names, but they don't really matter) finds himself at the altar. He does his best to keep Moe and Curly from finding out he's secretly gotten married and he does his best to keep his new wife from finding out about the Woman Haters club. As expected, a great deal of eye poking and head knocking ensues.

The two best things Woman Haters has going for it (beyond its curiosity value) is the rhyming scheme of the dialogue and Marjorie White as Larry's wife. While I've seen some complaints about the rhyming dialogue, it worked for me. I thought it was very clever. Now, it might not have worked for a full feature, but for a two-reeler, it's okay. As for Marjorie White, she more than capable of holding her own with Moe, Larry, and Curly - more so than most women I can think of off the top of my head who appeared in other Three Stooges shorts. It's too bad she didn't live long enough to see where her career might have taken her.

Here is the very first of nearly two hundred Columbia two-reel Three Stooges short subjects which Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curley Howard made on their own, without their unfunny old straight man, Ted Healy. The results are pretty good but mixed, depending on how you approach it. For those who are not prepared, you may be taken aback by the style here: it is a musical comedy, where occasionally we'll get a Stooge or two break out into song, and every line of dialogue is spoken in rhyme. The plot line is that Moe, Larry and Curley join a misogynistic organization called "The Woman Haters", and vow not to have anything to do with females. Trouble begins to arise, however, when a woman takes after Larry and then starts to set her sights on the other Stooges as well. Not for everyone, and it's not indicative of their latter films, but taken with an open mind it's not a bad piece of work for a debut line of shorts. **1/2 out of ****

WOMAN HATERS was the first of the Three Stooges shorts made for Columbia Pictures and began America's (if not the cinema comedy-loving world's) love affair with the Stooges. The short is billed as "A Musical Novelty", meaning that the entire film is spoken in rhyming dialogue. In a way, this could be thought of as the first rap music video.

WOMAN HATERS begins with a meeting of the eponymous organization when three new members wait with out. "With out what?" asks the president (Bud Jamison). We then meet the trio: Tom (Moe), Jim (Larry) and Jack (Curly). They all get initiated via eyepoke and vow to say down with any poor sap who sings "My love, my life, my all" to any dame. However, later in the day, Jim makes a "horrible" confession: He is engaged to Mary (Marjorie White). At first, he tries to back out of the marriage, until Mary's father shows Jim what happened to the last man who tried to back out of a marriage to one of his daughters.

All of the Stooges trademarks are present in WOMAN HATERS: The first eyepoke (delivered by Jamison), Curly's first "Woo-woo-woo" (after Moe bites him in the toes), the exaggerated sound effects. There's even an appearance by future Oscar winner Walter Brennan. Everything that made us fall in love with the Stooges started here. Now, watch it and enjoy, ya knuckleheads!

Let me tell ya - With a blatantly misogynistic title hanging over its head like "Woman Haters", I thought that this "Stooges" comedy-short certainly played it pretty cute'n'coy when it came right down to this whole matter of emphasizing "woman hating".

Yeah. It sure did tone things down in that area (which is understandable) considering that this novelty-short was initially meant to introduce Curly, Larry, and Moe to the movie-going public (of both men and women) and put them in a friendly and favorable light, all around, with everyone.

Anyway - (IMO) - "Woman Haters" (where the insults, face slaps, and eye-pokes were soon to become a standard routine among the Three Stooges) was a fairly entertaining little vintage film (for the most part).

WOMAN HATERS, where it all began for The Three Stooges at Columbia, is more of an anomaly in The Three Stooges series. Officially, it is part of The Musical Novelties series, a series in which all the dialogue is spoken in rhyme and accompanied by music. Well, "novelty" is a good way to describe this short because that is exactly how I view it.

I'm glad this short exists because it gives us a different look at The Three Stooges in a musical role, and Larry in particular does a fine job (no pun intended). That said, would I be a Three Stooges fan if all 190 shorts were like this? Not exactly. Musicals aren't really my thing, and this one holds my interest simply because of three certain actors who are in it.

The rhyming dialogue gets old after a while and the Stooges really have to conform to the rhythm of the music as opposed to the rhythm they would naturally develop in later shorts, so it sounds a bit forced. I don't have much else to say with this one except I find it to be a fascinating one off.