The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze

Phileas Fogg the Third, great-great-grandson (?) of the original Phileas Phogg, is convinced by a criminal confederate to go around the world in 80 days without spending any money in this Anglo-American production.

The Three Stooges are the servants of Fogg in this series of vignettes often filmed on location. Along the way they pick up a white American woman abducted by slave traders in India and deface a picture of Mao Zedong in China when captured by "technicians" of the Red Army (possibly a reference to contemporary events leading up the 1964 Sino-Indian War).

They get lost in the East China sea, but luckily avoid reaching Singapore where Lee Kuan Yew would have made them into Soylent Green. Then before the melodramatic end, it all hanged in the balance with a flight from Canada in a De Havilland Comet.

Hi I'm 13 years old. I'm a big fan of the Stooges! and the Three Stooges Go Around The World In A Daze is good and funny! Moe, Larry, Curly Joe, Are Going Around The World In Eighty Days It Is A good movie But I Like The Other 2 movies better! Of Them!! But It Is Still Good Though!!

It's now the 60s and Phileas Fogg III great grandson of the original Fogg of Jules Verne's famous story makes a similar bet with a couple of crooks who have just robbed the Bank of England and thrown suspicion on him. But instead of a Cantinflas like man Friday he has three house servants who accompany him. Guess who those servants are?

There's a twist to this bet. Jay Sheffield has to do it all without spending a dime or working for passage. No credit cards allowed. But as Moe says he's fortunate to be employing three of the biggest chiselers around. The Stooges are ingenious at finding ways to travel on the arm.

Like in the book and the Mike Todd extravaganza the super punctual Phileas Fogg finds some romance in India and in this case it's stranded Joan Freeman from Council Bluffs, Iowa.

My favorite bit is how the guys drive the Chinese Communists crazy by resisting brainwashing techniques. Quite simple, they're too stupid for them to have any effect. Shades of The Manchurian Candidate.

Another good piece is Curly Joe's attempts at Sumo wrestling. You have to see this one.

Stooge fans should approve.

Many hardcore Stooges fans look down on the latter-day Three Stooges, but "the Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze" is a fine film and a worthy addition to the Three Stooges canon. Shemp and the original Curly Joe aren't here, but this is Joe Derita's finest moment as a Stooge. The Stooges are in fine form, slapping and clobbering each other and falling into various misadventures(based loosely on the classic Jules Verne novel). You needn't worry about the romantic subplot drawing too much attention away from the boys - this film's sense of proportion is admirable. The Stooges resurrect a few of their old routines and throw in some new ones. The gentlemen playing the heels also turn in admirable comic performances. For my money, my favourite part of the movie is when the Three Stooges go to Red China. This part alone is worth the price of the movie. See for yourself. People who hate the Stooges won't be converted here, but the faithful will find much to rejoice in. Even in their latter days, they could still mug and thwock. Onesies or twosies? Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck. Greg Cameron, Surrey, B.C., Canada

The fame of the Three Stooges is such that one is nominally aware of them long before watching anything they made. To sit and watch their works, whether shorts or full-length features, that renown is less sure-footed. In one measure or another the troupe's films are entertaining, yes, but the quality ranges from wonderfully funny to only passively amusing, and depends a lot on how much one appreciates their particular brand of slapstick. I mean no disrespect to anyone involved when I say that this 1963 picture falls more into the latter category: enjoyable, but not making a significant lasting impression. If you're looking for something extra light on a lazy day 'The Three Stooges go around the world in a daze' may well fit the bill; beyond that, don't spend too much time thinking about it.

As with their contemporaries and forebears we're treated to a retinue of gags, situational humor, witty dialogue, and abject silliness on top of the expected slapstick. Some of these bits really are a blast, and are very clever; others are more blithely droll, or in the case of the Stooges' perpetual knocking of each others' heads, just grow tiresome quickly. I'm given to understand that a couple routines are recycled from past movies, which is no worse than what other comedians have done, and these help this to earn a laugh or two; then again, one loses its charm as it's repeated several times. Then there are the more plainly questionable odds and ends: as our characters travel around the globe, filmmaker Norman Maurer and screenwriter Elwood Ullman demonstrate that they know no more than maybe five things about any other culture, and sometimes no more than one; the only stand-out quality of Turkey, for example, is the apparent bad reputation of its prisons. At the same time, there are little details all throughout - signs seen in the background, scene writing, the performances into which the supporting cast is guided, and so on - that just come off as... well, they haven't aged well. And on top of all this, the writing is just all-around thin, very much trying one's suspension of disbelief if not also one's patience; some moments are worse than others, reducing the intended high energy of some instances to empty bluster.

From lacking vitality and hollow zest to sometimes flimsy storytelling and more outwardly dubious facets, there is sadly a fair amount of the feature that just doesn't really pass muster sixty years on. All this is unfortunate, because despite its troubles I do like 'Around the world in a daze' more than not, and it's well made. Even if participants' contributions were guided to ends that raise a skeptical eyebrow, everyone did a fine job in general: stunts, effects, costume design, hair, makeup, sets, cinematography, editing, and so on. The cast is swell. It's just that I think I specifically laughed only twice the whole time, and the film is of the sort that will provide a reasonably good diversion for ninety minutes before being rather forgotten. And hey, there's nothing inherently wrong with that; sometimes that's all a flick needs to be. Given the Stooges' status as icons, however, one expects more of them, and I don't think they don't fully deliver in this case. I'm glad for those who get more out of this than I do, and who altogether admire the group and love all they do; as far as I'm concerned, though, while 'The Three Stooges go around the world in a daze' might earn a recommendation, it's only a soft one.