Two More Stooge Shorts

First, What's the Matador?

(Short # 62 in Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk: The Columbia Shorts of The Three Stooges)

“Curly as a matador” is the gimmick here. The trio are entertainers who are sent to Mexico City. They meet a lady named Dolores who happens to have a jealous husband. One misunderstanding is that the husband believes all Three Stooges are cheating on his wife, and another is that the husband takes their suitcase by mistake; that had to be a cliché even in the early 40’s.

Unfortunately, this just wasn’t all that funny to me. The drama involving jealous husband Jose Sanchez was more irritating than humorous, as was the too-long segment of the trio attempting to speak to people but there’s a language barrier. A Mexican character delivered a long soliloquy which I didn’t understand; Wiki told me that he gave them directions… to jump in the river. They had an act in the bullfighting ring where Curly was a matador-Moe and Larry were in a bull suit together. Jose pays someone off to introduce a real bull.

There’s some chuckles there but even then it wasn’t a laugh riot. Of all shorts, this was remade as Sappy Bull Fighters, released in 1959 and best known as the last short the Stooges did at Columbia. That was worse than this; the reasons why will be discussed in the summer. Before anyone asks, my opinion of bullfighting has zero impact on the rating. It is a controversial topic and if I made any negative comments, it’d be offensive to who knows how many millions of Spanish-speaking people. If someone decides to root for the bull to gore or do worse to a matador… that is up to you.

Second, Matri-Phony: 

(Short # 63 in Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk: The Columbia Shorts of The Three Stooges)

So, today is Shemp Howard’s birthday; Samuel Horwitz was born on this day in 1895. It will be more than a month until I start talking about his time in The Three Stooges but it was trivia still worth mentioning today. Plus, that era isn’t as well-known as the Curly era-even by me-but what I’ve seen has usually been rather enjoyable so I’ll be happy to do those reviews.

As for Matri-Phony, the Stooges are in Ancient Rome. Their names are Mohicus, Larrycus, and Curleycue… and their foe is the Emperor, Octopus Grabus. This along with the premise of Grabus wanting “all unmarried red headed maidens between the ages of 18 and 22” to report to the palace so he could pick a bride and the trio help hide Diana, one of the women—this description should set the tone and mood rather well for the reader.

Grabus is like Mr. Magoo without his glasses-perhaps this is not historically accurate (then again, I know Gladiator II wasn’t) yet that’s irrelevant and his poor vision is a plot point later on. An asset is that the palace is a nice set featuring several rooms. Heck, all the sets here were of at least decent quality and helped Laughs are present throughout, including Curly’s interactions with “a tarantula”… actually, a crab.

The final third is Curly dressed as Diana. Moe tells Curly to “get sexy” (I’ve heard that the Hays Code did not scrutinize shorts as stringently as feature films. Perhaps that phrase wouldn’t have been in a 1942 feature film) after Vernon Dent as Octopus has his glasses broken. It’s a nice conclusion to Matri-Phony, a short that had laughs throughout and decently used the Roman setting.