Beer and Pretzels

WHEN ONE HAS been used to having his Stooges movies served up in the tradition of the Columbia Pictures variety, viewing these MGM Ted Healy and the 3 Stooges shorts presents one with a certain set of problems. Essentially we have a sort of 'Time Machine' in which we are able to view others at an earlier state of development; heretofore being an unknown commodity.

THE ONLY OTHER experience that we can site that would compare relates to our two then grade school daughters first viewing of a classic 1940's film. On a holiday off from school, we screened KNUTE ROCKNE ALL American (Warner Bros., 1940); which starred Pat O'Brien in the title role and a future U.S. President as George Gipp. The girls were indeed taken back with Ronald Reagan's portrayal of "the Gipper"; exclaiming that 'Dutch' looked like a College Boy.

BUT, WE DIGRESS. Getting back to this short, the shock is real when one sees that team boss, Ted Healy, is doing the whacking and hitting. Even Moe is reduced to a submissive human punching bag. Ted's demeanor, body language and fish market voice is most domineering and even annoying. His on screen persona would seem to match that to which he was attributed; being tyrannical, self important and cheap.

THE SCENARIO, SUCH as it is, consists of a basic premise of Ted and the boys being banned from an engagement on a Vaudeville Stage by the theatre manager (Ed Brophy). After we learn that the reason for their difficulties in keeping employment is Healy's eye for the ladies. They then seek employment as Singing Waiters.

THE COMIC MATERIAL is obviously tried and true 'old stuff' that they had done on the Vaudeville and Burlesque stages. Tried and true routines, made for a sort of insurance policy for guaranteeing that the laugh meter is being kept busy.

BECAUSE THE SHORTS were being shot at MGM, there is a lot of infusion of talents that were around that studio. Singers, dancers and a large number of extras; all made for a look of opulence. Added to this, we have the obvious use of some sets that belonged to other productions.

BEER AND PRETZELS surely cannot be rated as a top Stooges movie. But it is certainly a fine example of what can only be described as a work in progress. There would be a long tenure with Producer/Director Jules White over at 'Poverty Row' Columbia. But it would be sans Mr. Ted Healy.

The boys really threw themselves around, tossing their bodies, all over the place, during these early MGM shorts, that they did with Healy. The copy I saw of Beer and Pretzels (1933), on YouTube, was a nicely restored version. The quality was great. The boys try to get jobs being waiters. This one is a little chaotic, with the dancing though. Bonnie Bonnell returns from the boys last film, Nertsery Rhymes (1933). In one dance scene, a dancer looks like she's having a seizure. It was weird. It was odd. The three tap dancer guys, who popped up, were slightly entertaining though. The director, Jack Cummings, lighted the sets strategically, so the dancers were in shadow, showing a silhouetted look. It was the second film in a five series run, produced by MGM studios.

There are signs of magic, to these early Stooge films. Previews of things to come. It is great seeing these again with a 21st century perspective. It is really interesting trying to analyze, what is going on in the boys' minds, as they act out these scenes, knowing what we know now, from a real-world perspective. It's an odd contrast, when some of the characters discuss the concept of being solo. It contrasts to what happens to Healy, Moe, Larry and Curly, the following year, when the gang split and the Three Stooges were born. Healy does do some of the gags in Beer and Pretzels (1933), that the Stooges made famous, later on, during their 25 year run, that followed. This one just felt a tad sloppy in its design, compared to their previous film.

6.1 (D+ MyGrade) = 6 IMDB.

Larry Fine, Moe Howard, Curly Howard, and Ted Healy are Heely-Heely-Heely & Heely. They are a bottom rung vaudevillian act getting thrown out of the theater. They are reduced to working as restaurant waiters. Of course, it goes horribly wrong.

Ted Healy and the Stooges are working out the premise. The Three Stooges are really the backup performers for Healy. This is a must for any Three Stooges fans. It's part of their origins story. The best is when the Stooges go crazy and Healy tries to direct the chaos. One can also see why Healy isn't necessary to the act. Without him, the chaos can be fully unleashed.

What I'm reviewing here is the second of the M-G-M shorts that starred Ted Healy and His Stooges (Moe, Larry, and Curly, natch), not to mention their female foil, Bonnie Bonnell-once again credited as "Bonny". About the latter, she was inconsistently uneven-performance wise-in the previous short Nertsery Rhymes but here is quite funny doing some of the trips and falls with the boys and later nicely begins a number that segues into three bartenders finishing it. Anyway, Healy, Howard, Fine, and Howard are fired from a vaudeville bill and manage to get hired as waiters at a nearby restaurant. If you know the Stooges, you can guess what happens but not before they do a little entertaining singing of their own. So on that note, Beer and Pretzels is very good as an early Stooge short and is thought of so highly that Moe considered it his favorite of his M-G-M efforts and Leonard Maltin made this the only of those shorts to be shown complete on his "The Lost Stooges" VHS tape from the early '90s. P.S. The theater manager who throws out the boys in the beginning is Edward Brophy who would later play the Stooges' restaurant boss in Swing Parade of 1946.

This is the second Three Stooges short and it's obvious that MGM Studios had no idea what to do with the boys. Part of this confusion may have been because the Stooges still were not the same lovable team we have all come to know. Instead, they were essentially the vaudeville team of Ted Healy and His Stooges--with the obnoxious and totally untalented and unlikable Healy as the front man. In real life, Healy was an alcoholic and bitter man and his 'Stooges' resented his taking the lion's share of the money and headlining the act--they also resented his treatment of them. Incidentally, shortly after the three left this team, Healy was beaten to death in a bar fight.

As for this short, it has some lovely Stooge moments but unfortunately there is also LOTS and LOTS of singing and dancing--little of which was done by the Stooges. Because of this, the short is very frustrating to most Stooge fans, though die-hard fans and film historians would no doubt find this interesting.