Stop! Look! and Laugh!

WE WELL RECALL when this compilation/crazy quilt of a movie hit the local shows. This was in the second year of the great 3 Stooges revival. Much like the previous year's release of THE THREE STOOGES theatrical 2 reelers to television, there were no re$idual$ paid by Columbia.

IT WAS THIS initial TV package that did get the names of Moe, Larry, Curly and Shemp out to the public, hence the revival. This STOP! LOOK! & LAUGH served no such purpose and had a sort of parasitic effect on the act.

IN THE SAME manner of all devout Stooge converts, the four Ryan kids headed to the nearest neighborhood show; which had it booked for exhibition. In this case, it was the Highland Theatre at 79th Street & Ashland Avenue in Chicago. The trip required the use of a CTA (Chicago Transit Authority*) bus in an extraordinary venturing outside of our own community's turf.

WELL IN THE end, it all turned out to be an extreme letdown. The Stooges' appearance proved to be not original new footage; but rather a myriad of scenes unimaginatively culled from old Stooges Comedies that had already been given to (among others) our own WGN TV, Channel 9 in Chicago. We had seen the schtick before and weren't fooled by the big screen presentation. Kids aren't dumb.

FILLING OUT THE "Cast" was the team of ventriloquist Paul Winchell, Jerry Mahoney & Knucklehead Smith; who were then very popular on TV and at the top of their game. Added to that was The Marquis Chimps, who also were highly sought after and would soon "star" in their own sitcom, THE HATHAWAYS(Gloucester Prod./Screen Gems/ABC TV, 1961), with Peggy Cass and Jack Weston.

ALL OF THIS may well have proved to be worthwhile for a Saturday matinée had it not been for the fact that it was perpetrate fraudulently.

AND THAT WAS unforgivable to folks like Schultz and his friends! Ain't that right, Schultz?

Many young 3 Stooges fans didn't like faux-Curly Joe DeRita so this feature film using footage of the REAL Curly was produced for the Saturday matinee kiddy crowd. Sadly ROCKIN' IN THE ROCKIES a 1945 feature film with Moe, Larry and the real Curly which could've been re-released to theaters was not shown. ☺

This film was made to be a B picture, meaning it opened for the main movie. As a B picture, it is sufficient, it does it's job, holds the attention, provides Stooge and Paul Winchell fans with some laughs. This film was never meant to satisfy an audience would would come 40 years later, spoiled by pristine remastered complete prints available with the click of a DVD player.

No, this was for the kids who wanted a quick laugh, familiar gags they had probably seen a hundred times (by 1960 the Three Stooges as well as the Little Rascals were syndicated on many kiddie TV shows), so this movie fulfills it's requirement of keeping audiences happy till the main feature came up.

So, if you want to see this, watch it in that spirit, get up one Saturday morning, pop some popcorn and get some soda pop put this tape in , watch a few cartoons after it's over and then you will be warmed up for something like a film from the Sinbad series, early Jerry Lewis or something else you might enjoy from the period.

I saw "Stop!Look!and Laugh!" as part of a double bill when I was a teenager and found it amusing, but strictly for the small fry. Whether the viewer enjoys this picture or not depends greatly on being a fan of the Three Stooges and Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney. Even Three Stooges addicts will be disappointed with the disjointed nature of the editing culled from some of the Stooges best film shorts.

Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney became TV's answer to the extremely popular Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy radio program. Though Winchell was a much better ventriloquist than Bergen, his humor basically was for the kids whereas Bergen appealed to a much wider audience, pleasing adults as well as children. So in this movie, Mahoney is presented as Winchell's little boy who hates school and uses all types of stratagems to stay home.

The film has a major problem in making transitions from Winchell and Mahoney's comic routines to the archival footage featuring the Three Stooges. The transitions are at best forced and at times complete failures. The archival footage of the Stooges presents the goofy trio in much edited versions, sort of like a celluloid Reader's Digest. Still, the slapstick humor of the Stooges often rises above the sloppy editing to make the audience laugh.

Never serious competition for Laurel and Hardy or the Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges could deliver the belly laughs at times, especially the original Moe, Larry, and Curly, with Curly turning out to be one of the best visual comedians of his day. Many of the scripts were well-written and the early shorts well directed. Unfortunately Curly's humor suffered in later years as a result of poor health. So rather than wasting your time on "Stop!Look! and Laugh!," rent "Disorder in Court," the Clark Gable parody, "Men in Black," or "A Plumbing We Will Go" to see the Stooges at their very best. If you're a fan of old-time slapstick you will certainly enjoy the Classic Stooges but may find "Stop!Look!and Laugh!" a bit disappointing.

I saw this when I was a kid. I remember it being advertised as "See the original Three Stooges in Stop, Look and Laugh!". I was disappointed and I was a kid easily entertained. I didn't think it was close to being worth the 35 cents admission. That was one week's allowance money, after all. I could have seen the horror flick The City of the Dead or better yet, I could have used the 35 cents and purchased seven Milky Way candy bars and eaten them in the basement on Saturday morning while watching an episode of Fury on television. The problem with Stop, Look and Laugh was that the Stooges comedy wasn't made for feature length film. And that fact gets compounded when it's a film made of old Stooges clips spliced together. I did pay $10 to get into a Stooges 24 hour marathon a few years ago and it was worth the money. I made it through 2 1/2 to 3 hours worth of Stooges or about six shorts, with one being a mediocre "Shemp".