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Hi. I'm Wheeler Winston Dixon, James Ryan professor of Film Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
and this is Frame By Frame.
And today I want to talk about the endless popularity of The Three Stooges,
those improbable immortals who basically made 190 short films... 2-reel films for Columbia Pictures
from 1934 to 1958, which was their last film.
The Three Stooges were Moe Howard, Jerry "Curly" Howard, and Larry Fine.
And they originally started working in Vaudeville with Ted Healy as "Ted Healy and his Stooges."
But Ted Healy was very violent in his treatment of them, and really would slap them around on stage.
And Moe Howard, who was the "mob leader" of the group thought they had to go solo.
So they broke with Ted Healy, and in a plot that would really fit in a Three Stooges movie,
he told them to "spread out" and go to the various different studios, and find a contract.
Larry signed with Universal, while Moe signed them with Columbia... on the same day!
And they basically went to Harry Cohen of Columbia, and explained that they had made this mistake.
And they found that they had signed with Universal a couple of hours later than Columbia,
so they were stuck with Columbia, and there they made 2-reel shorts.
Their shorts, of course, are incredibly violent.
The best ones are done with Curly.
Curly died, unfortunately of a stroke in 1952. He had the stroke in '47, but died in '52.
His place was taken by Moe's other brother, Shemp.
And after that there was Curly Joe DeRita, and Joe Besser also filled in for a while.
And the Three Stooges films are all incredibly violent humor, but at the same time they are very funny.
There's sort of this rap that women aren't supposed to like the Three Stooges,
but I think all of the women I know in my life have always loved the Three Stooges.
They're not like Laurel and Hardy; they're not subtle.
But at the same time, they're always down and out, and they're always struggling to find a place in society.
Their best films were "Men In Black," "Grips, Grunts and Groans," "Dizzy Doctors,"
"Violent in the Word for Curly," which is a take-off of "Valiant is the Word for Cary."
A lot of their films, particularly with Curly, are just some remarkable pieces of comedy work.
So if you're looking for some interesting laughs, the Three Stooges are really you're ticket.
Also, there's a new Three Stooges film, which is being done by the Farrelly Brothers,
and should come out in 2012, which basically takes 3 of their 2-reel comedies and slaps them together
into one 97-minute film.
Whether this is going to work or not, I don't know.
But the Three Stooges will survive no matter what happens to them in the future.
I'm Wheeler Winston Dixon for Frame By Frame.