The Outlaws Is Coming

Beginning with a portentous opening narration by Paul Frees, The Three Stooges' big screen swansong plays like a cross between a slapstick silent, 'F-Troop' and 'The Monkees', gleefully dropping the names of the likes of Billy the Kid and Bat Masterson, with a curiously ecologically concerned plot involved the endangered buffalo.

An interesting supporting cast includes Mort ('Psycho') Mills as a menacing heavy with the delightful name Trigger Mortis and Henry ('Laugh-In') Gibson as an injun brave, Sally Starr as Belle Starr, while straight men don't come straighter than Adam West (soon be reunited with feisty Annie Oakley Nancy Kovack on the set of 'Batman'). But the best performance is probably given by Moe's pet skunk Elvis.

This not only has some great Stooge schtick but lots of funny satire on old west films, modern life, even spoofing the Stooges themselves. Some bits are like a forerunner to Saturday Night Live "A Japanese Beetle?" Not my favorite Stooge feature film that goes to Hercules for its wonderful story, and great fun. However it is the funniest and most clever in delivery of humor.

I like the Stooge 2 reelers a lot, seen them all. However lets face it, how many times can you laugh at Moe slapping or doing an eye poke? The feature films matured them, pun intended, into good story, cast and broader humor. The stooges morphed into whatever era situation was required to keep going. They should be proud of this, well done boys.

So if you want non stop eye pokes and slaps, watch a Jules White directed 2 reeler, if you are in the mood for something different, this is for you.

The Three Stooges were an act for several decades and over time, the act changed quite a bit depending on who the third Stooge was as well as popular opinions. In the early days, the Stooges were nutty and ultra-violent, as folks in the 1930s-40s loved it and Curly Howard was perfect as the dopiest of the Stooges. However, after his retirement following a stroke, the team changed several times. Curly's older brother, Shemp, took his place and the films the group made were pretty similar to the earlier ones. However, with Shemp's death, the Stooges changed radically. First, Joe Besser came into the group and the shorts they made with him were pretty awful, as Besser managed to be MUCH more annoying than any previous Stooge. After he left the group because he was obviously NOT a good fit, they brought in Joe De Rita, who objected to much of the eye poking and violence of the earlier films. This, combined with parental concerns about their kids imitating the Stooges lead to the group making far less violent films...and, at least for me, far, far less interesting and bland ones as well. So, whether or not you like "The Outlaws is Coming" is highly dependent on what you think of these latter day Stooges.

A reporter (Adam West) is sent from his Boston newspaper to investigate the disappearance of the bison in the west. Well, it turns out some local scumbag and his henchmen are trying to wipe them out in order to foment unrest with the natives...in the hope that the unrest will result in their taking control of these western territories. The Stooges go along for comic relief and Annie Oakley arrives in time to save the reporter from instant death!

The story is only okay. The laughs are few. Overall, it's really a story that seems tailored towards children and not adults...which probably explains why I felt so bored. Now understand,...it's NOT terrible...but it is also only a shallow version of what I and so many others liked about the Stooges. A bit of Curly's nuttiness could have helped this film immensely.

By the way, you might notice that the plot is VERY similar to the Don Knotts film, "The Shakiest Gun in the West", though the Knotts film is far funnier and well worth seeing.

Technically it was the last and final productions of my infancy-heroes on cinema industry, after for few appearances on screen, they make me laugh during the seventies when I was a little boy, those shorts aired in my local TV, I used to gathered with a bunch of buddies around TV in every single TV sessions, their physical humor cracked me up with the power trio Moe, Larry and Curly follow up by Shemp, aftermaths by Joe Besser and Joe DeRita in those four full-length productions, unfortunately all them didn't live up their early career no matter how their trying to.

Ours friend as usually are the clumsy old sidekicks on a famous magazine addressed to protect American wildlife in Boston, due an upcoming Buffalos massacre in western they were sent there to hinder such cruelty with the younger editor Adam West (prior Batman stardom), upon the arrival the unable gunslinger Adam West is perforce to become a local Sheriff in absent of previous four late lawmen properly buried on graveyard, therefore Moe, Larry and Curly-Joe also hired as deputies to enforce a law in lawless western city helped by the gorgeous quick draw Annie Oakley (Nancy Kovack), meanwhile dealing with Indian's rebellion and a crocked men.

Apart a Columbia low-budge production, the screenwriters provides many funniest lines for ours friends and the supporting casting as when the badmen trying selling an armored wagon and guns to Indian chief using small quotes and body language, when appears a modern and schooled son talking in stylish American jargon, in meantime the Stooges keeping their slapstick comedy, in fact nothing unusual on three previous feature films, anyway let it see easy, however don't expect anything like the golden days whatsoever.

Thanks for reading.

Resume:

First watch: 1993 / How many: 4 / Source: TV-DVD-R-Youtube / Rating: 6.

Just watched this again on YouTube, several years after originally seeing this late at night on TNT. This was the last theatrical movie for The Three Stooges and it's quite a good one to go out on even though they had one more film to go (that would be Kook's Tour which was another of their TV pilots and which I'll review next). Moe, Larry, and Curly Joe are photographers in Boston when the movie starts. Adam West runs their newspaper department and is passionate about the possible extinction of the buffalo. When their boss (regular Stooge supporting player Emil Sitka) tells of how low that speices seems to be in number, they go west to try to prevent it. I'll stop there and just say the Stooges are as funny as ever with their physical comedy and there are also some anachronistic gags about modern times that were nice surprises especially a couple of ones about The Beatles! The producer/director was Norman Maurer-Moe's son-in-law. Also Maurer's son Jeffrey Scott appears as the only underage kid here. And Don Lamond-who's the main villain here-is Larry's son-in-law. The famous gunslingers whose names get printed on screen as they are introed are all played by TV kid show hosts who showed Stooges shorts on their stations. Among them was Joe Bolton who previously appeared in the Stooges-with-Curly compilation film Stop! Look! And Laugh! Interesting sidelight: After this movie, Adam West would become a big star in the "Batman" series and Henry Gibson-the college-educated young adult Indian who criticizes the Pidgin English Lamond communicates to his father-would be a regular on "Laugh-In". So on that note, I recommend The Outlaws Is Coming.