The Three Stooges - Rare Treasures From The Columbia Pictures Vault

This collection is a true pleasure, as it actually contains what it advertises - rare material.The 1945 Musical is better than what one might expect - Columbia always excelled at anachronistic comedy and here we have another entertaining example - hard to tell if we are in the old west or the new west (represented by the new "western Swing" music) but it's light fun and the script is excellent. We have a toned down Curly and Larry parring with a restrained Moe (the slaps come at bigger intervals) named Shorty here, hair combed back, an old time prospector who's time has about run out...until he meets the boys in a saloon where they magically win a casino game. the loot keeps them safe from ever-encroaching law enforcement. Shorty vouches for them - he will ensure their exit from town tomorrow - as they join a big team to look for precious metals out in them thar hillz.As musicals go, it's pretty good. At times, an odd combination of Tin Pan Alley and Western Bop (with the real Spade Cooley and others, in the spirit of Bob Wills, et. al). And all that "rockin'" business holds extra interest in that, yes, a new form of music was on the way, rockabilly! Watching these bands play, with nice, tight close ups on the players, gives us a foretaste of what Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins would accomplish a decade later.I did not watch HAVE ROCKET on this package...but confess to watching it in a theatre in 1959 (and perhaps once all the way through on TV, since). Not bad at all, with a zany screenplay and some nice inventiveness. But like every single one of the Stooges features at the time, should have been much funnier. So, if you'll allow, I'll put that one aside for now. Shouldn't detract from the rating.Moving on to the Shemp series I have to say I enjoyed every one, save the remake of A PLUMBING WE WILL GO. Couldn't cut it, sorry. But the big news for me is that all of the other selections are good to very good and make us wonder why (we assume) they were rarely, if ever shown on TV! Several are better than some Stooge films of the era! And even better: we get a chance not only to see more of Shemp, as wild and crazy as ever, but also Christine McIntyre! Their best scenes together, such as in BRIDE AND GLOOM, make one imagine what a TV series might have looked like with them as stars. All the "Stooge players", in fact, get a lot of frame-time..and ofcourse this means for longtime fans, the chance to watch something close to, unreleased Three Stooges! We see a lot of Vernon Dent and even some small bits with Bud Jamison and Emil Sitka and the actor who played the Palace guard in "Malice in the Palace". The okay remake of PUNCH DRUNKS nonetheless features none other than Charles Rogers, of Hal Roach Studios! He plays the violin man.I also wonder if Jackie Gleason may have gotten his idea for "Charlie Bratton" from the Shemp short, MR. NOISY, or "Rudy, The Repairman" from the remake of the 1936 Stooges film where they played exterminators.Moving on to Joe Bessor's stuff: there is exactly one good entry...but it's very good! In fact, I can say it's one of the best shorts Columbia ever put out, called WAITING IN THE LURCH (1949), where he plays the eccentric rich kid who is able to live out his childhood fantasy of being a master fire fighter! This "obsession" nearly ruins his marriage to Christine McIntyre - Vernon Dent plays the - yes, irate - Father. The slapstick is played down and we have a very agreeable, I daresay, sophisticated comedy. There's even a remake here, from 1954, and with Christine! It has about five minutes of new footage...but this surely must be of interest to Stooge-McIntryre fans, who might assume she left the Stooges (and show business) around 1950.The remainder of Bessor's stuff...as we say, it's here for "historical reasons". He's a great character actor but the material is beyond lame. He must have been thrilled to "redeem" himself, when he got to work work with Abbott and Costello in that one brilliant sitcom season on TV, 1951-52.The historians can now see that (most likely) it was no big stretch to find and sign Bessor as Shemp's replacement...as he had been part of the Columbia family for years.Also included some interesting but decided uninspired Joe De Rita footage; three cartoons.{quality is excellent}.{wonder if Sony can look even deeper into the vaults for the "lost" Curly cameo of 1949?}.

At long last Columbia dips into the vaults & releases the solo works of Shemp Howard, Joe Besser and Joe Derita after who knows how many years of clamoring by stooge fanatics. Thrown in to boot are a couple of features, "Rockin in the Rockies" and "Have Rocket, Will Travel"."Rockin in the Rockies" is a somewhat pleasant feature starring a bunch of singing and dancing acts I'm sure not too many people have heard of or will remember once the feature is over. Whoever penned this film also had the "brilliant" idea to split up the stooges as Moe plays a character called Shorty Williams with his hair combed back (kind of distracting) while Larry and Curly play a two-man team although the three do come together quite often and some stooge antics are on display in spots throughout the movie. Not as terrible as some people have made it out to be but no great shakes either."Have Rocket" was the boys first starring feature at Columbia after their resurgence in popularity during the late 1950s & seems expressly aimed at a kids audience. In fact, some (like myself) would say the problem with the stooges of the late 50s and 1960s is that somehow the boys got pegged as being just childrens entertainers. Of course, watching the short subjects that made them legends in the first place would throw cold water on that idea, but nonetheless we get a movie with a talking unicorn of all things (as if the talking horses of the Besser era wasn't bad enough). Not the greatest start off to the Joe Derita era but not a total waste either.Disc 2 is where we really get the goods. The solo works of Shemp Howard. One theme that seems prevalent through a lot of the Shemp solos is the "jealous husband" gimmick and it may get tiring after awhile but Shemp still manages to give the material some sparkle, even in one of the weaker outings like "Pick a Peck of Plumbers" with the comically challenged El Brendel. Best of the lot includes "Where the Pest Begins" and "Mr. Noisy".Disc 3 includes the solo works of Besser and Derita and depending on your fondness (or lack thereof) of those two as stooges, these solo features may not sway your opinion of them in one way or the other, although I will say Besser could be a cute little man in his own way. And yes, you will get the feeling of deja-vu watching some of the later 1950s Besser shorts which were stock footage remakes of the 1940s films and are about the same quailty as the Shemp three stooges remakes which is to say they are mostly mediocre.Overall, I would say I was satisfied with my purchase although I'm not sure I would recommend this set for a stooge novice. It seems like mostly the hardcore stooge nuts such as myself will enjoy this set. 4 stars