Stop! Look! And Laugh!
78 min. / B&W / 1.85:1 / DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono / SDH English, Spanish
Columbia BD $29.99
Available from Movie Zyng
Ventrinkelist Paul Winkell... er, ventriloquist Paul Winchell... has several run-ins with his wooden-headed wards, young Jerry Mahoney and the not-so-smart Knucklehead Smiff, and tries to keep them amused by telling them tales of the Three Stooges. As if that’s not enough, when Paul attempts to call a plumber or auto mechanic or quell the late-night party next door, he runs into Moe, Larry, and Curly's antics himself. Finally, he tells the little dummies (the wooden ones, not the three with the bad haircuts) the story of Cinderella, starring the famous Marquis Chimps.
I'll say it upfront: this is probably my favorite kiddie matinee ever (not counting monster movies); my own boys grew up watching this thing, too, loving it, and quoting from it a lot. Although the Stooges weren't happy about the whole project, not being pair and all, (they threatened a lawsuit, but Columbia quieted them by agreeing to help finance "real" Stooges features) this is a compilation of many good Stooge scenes (from How High is Up, Micro-Phonies, Calling All Curs and many others) and the Winchell scenes are excellent fodder for the kiddies, too. PLUS the Marquis Chimps - speaking mainly in rhyme and voiced by the unmistakable June Foray - are a hoot. The film's a real winner for kids (and grownups who are big kids).
Million-dollar Dialog:
Knucklehead, on why he don't wanna go to school: "They can't teach me nothin'."
Paul: "They can't teach me ANYTHING."
Knuck: "Oh, you must be stupid too, huh?"
Officer Joe Bolton, who hosted The Three Stooges Funhouse on TV in New York from 1958 to 1970, has a guest appearance, too. Stop! Look! And Laugh!, like the Stooges themselves, may not be great art but it sure is funny and extremely likeable. Incidentally, "director" Jules White later admitted that while he selected the clips, he had nothing to do with actually directing the film.
It looks great on Blu-ray big upgrade from the DVD, and that's no easy feat because for the theatrical release, the 1.37 AOR was blown up to 1.85:1 to match the new footage; nevertheless, the clips all look fine. Once upon a time, the three TV channels we oldsters received were full of affable TV hosts (in Cleveland, we had an elf named Barnaby, an engineer named Captain Penny, a toymaker named Franz, a woodsman named Woodrow, and probably others I’m forgetting) who would host cartoons and comedy shorts and “The Funny Man” and it’s a sad, sad thing that those days are gone forever. This film is probably one of the last reminders at what an after-school kiddie show looked like, and it’s highly recommended. As I said to start the article, it’s an all-time favorite.
