The Three Stooges Collection, Vol. 4: 1943-1945 (2008) Review

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(More customer reviews)This set completes the better Curly shorts, towards the end of this set he started suffering mini-strokes and the effects show on screen. But for the most part, Curly is still full of energy!
The 21 shorts are:
1943
They Stooge to Conga (wartime. Moe disguises as Hitler!)
Dizzy Detectives
Spook Louder
Back From The Front (wartime)
Three Little Twerps
Higher Than A Kite (wartime)
I Can Hardly Wait (one of the weaker ones, Curly has a bad tooth)
Dizzy Pilots (wartime)
Phony Express
A Gem Of A Jam
1944
Crash Goes The Hash
Busy Buddies
The Yoke's on Me (wartime stereotypes)
Idle Roomers
Gents Without Cents (features "Niagara Falls" routine)
No Dough Boys (wartime)
1945
Three Pests In A Mess (nice cemetery comedy for Halloween)
Booby Dupes (wartime joke at the end of this non-wartime comedy. Stooges go fishing.)
Idiots Deluxe (first evidence of Curly's mini-strokes & 1st with black title-card)
If a Body Meets a Body
Micro-Phonies (still a classic, even with the mini-stroke)
--A word about Curly's decline:
Curly would go on to film 10 more shorts in the next year, but none of them equaled the quality of these.
Even the last three shorts of this set show the signs of health problems.
In IDIOTS DELUXE the failing health starts to show in Curly's face, but his voice is still stong & energetic.
IF A BODY MEETS A BODY shows the first full signs of a stroke. Not only has Curly's face changed, but his voice has now dropped & speach patterns become more labored. His energy levels have dropped noticably (a body double is used near the end).
MICROPHONIES gives hope for a recovery. Curly still lacks his old energy but he seems enthused and energized with the script. However his voice & face remain the same.
The real devastations will show up in the next set as Curly is unable to finish 1946'S BEER BARREL POLECATS, leaving only half a short filmed and forcing the director to pad out the film with 8 minutes of stock footage from earlier films. I don't know if this health-related sortcut gave Columbia the idea to save money on future Shemp Shorts by using large segments of stock footage, but it is the start of a bad trend at Columbia Short Subjects Department. The future arrival of Shemp forced Columbia to stop this for a while as Curly footage could not fit well in a Shemp film.
Well, more on this when volume 5 comes out.
***STOOGES V.S. STOOGE***
One problem I have with some of the last comedies in this set is the scripts putting stooge against stooge, breaking up the team.
In IDIOTS DELUXE Larry & Curly take Moe to court for beating them up. The short then goes into the story of why Moe did this. The story itself is top form Stooge comedy. I can just imagine the brainstorming session in the story room: "Hey what if the boys get tired of Moe hitting them and take him to court! That would be a new twist."
IF A BODY MEETS A BODY starts on an off note with Larry & Moe getting tired of Curly's foolishness and telling him to leave. A sobbing Curly packs to go when Larry & Moe see a newspaper article announcing the search for a missing heir to a fortune: Curly Q. Link. Suddenly Moe & Larry want Curly to be their friend again & appologize.
I always thought of the Stooges as tight friends, through slap & eye poke. Basically they are one being to me, not three individuals. It is a down note for me to see them fighting against each other, even if it is a story plot device.

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The hilarious slapstick antics of Larry, Moe and Curly are back in digitally re-mastered versions of The Three Stooges shorts originally created from 1943 - 1945. The set includes, in original release order, all 21 complete shorts filmed during these years.In this fourth chronological collection of The Three Stooges, we come to the final years of what has become regarded as the high point in their career - their Golden Age. These 21 digitally remastered shorts from the 1943-1945 era contain some of their best work, including the classic Micro-Phonies (1943) which Curly turns in a brilliant performance as opera diva Senorita Cucaracha. Also included in this collection are two favorites that are so outrageous that television programmers are always hesitant about airing them: They Stooge to Conga(1943) features what is considered one of the most violent scenes ever filmed by the Three Stooges and The Yoke's On Me (1944) is what we today refer to as "politically incorrect" in its portrayal of Japanese soldiers. The Three Stooges Collection Volume 4 is groundbreaking, hilarious and outrageous -- classic entertainment from Larry, Moe, and Curly at the height of their creativity. Don't miss out on the fun!

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