mhettler

60 years later, this episode is noteworthy for its guest stars. We have Leonard Nimoy as a mobster's goon, John Banner as a bootlegger, and Mayella from To Kill a Mockingbird playing an adult version of Mayella from To Kill a Mockingbird. Banner's performance is particularly enjoyable for viewers who remember him from Hogan's Heroes. He is very much in his future Sergeant Schultz persona, playing a German immigrant "brewmeister" who is essentially a less dim-witted Schultz, even at one point telling Eliot Ness, "I know nothing." That alone makes the episode worth watching for Hogan's Heroes fans. Nimoy's character, on the other hand, bears no resemblance to Spock, but it's still interesting to see him in the days before he became typecast as Spock.

This movie is of special interest to me as a Three Stooges fan, in that it features not one but two actors who were part of the Stooges at one time or other, Joe Besser and Shemp Howard. Joe, almost universally regarded as the least funny of all who were ever part of the trio, was the only member to have a more successful comedy career apart from the Stooges than with. Shemp, despite sometimes being compared unfavorably with his brother Curly, was a solid member of the trio for 10 years, while his career apart from the Stooges never really amounted to much.

In this movie we see both of those realities at work. Joe is, in a word, hilarious, and steals virtually every scene he is in. It's not much of a stretch to say that this is as much his movie as Bud's and Lou's. Shemp, on the other hand, plays a nearsighted buffoon, and his performance is nothing more than a running gag that involves him repeatedly running into things, which quickly grows tiresome.

Seeing Joe Besser's comedic talents on display here (as well as in other settings, like the post-Stooges Joey Bishop Show), leaves one marveling at how one so hilariously funny could have flopped so completely as a Stooge. Whereas Shemp will always be remembered as one of the Three Stooges and nothing else, and his performance in this movie does nothing to change that.

This is simply their worst. I love the Stooges and can watch their stuff for hours at a time, but this one is unwatchable. It's worse even than anything they did with Joe Besser. Joe, at least, was funny in his own right, even if he didn't really fit well with Moe and Larry; if you tuned out the fact that it was the Three Stooges and thought of it as Mr. Jillson from the Joey Bishop show with a couple of supporting players, those shorts could be mildly entertaining. But no such mental sleight of hand is possible here. This is Moe, Larry, and Curly; they were never anything other than the Three Stooges, and this one just doesn't work.

Granted, it was their first effort as the Three Stooges sans Ted Healy; they were a new act, they probably had little control over content, and studio executives hadn't figured out yet how to best utilize their unique talents. I shudder to think what kind of place the world would be today if some genius at Columbia had watched this and liked it and decided that this would set the tone for the rest of the trio's career. Fortunately, that didn't happen. They would come back with Punch Drunks (which they co-wrote) and establish just who they were once and for all.

Not that the premise itself - three men make a pact to stay away from women, one breaks the pact and falls in love - didn't have potential. But the device of having them spend the entire time talking to each other in verse just doesn't work. And in hindsight, with their entire body of work in front of us, this just isn't THEM. They were the best at what they did, but this was something else, and it just didn't suit them.