Curly HowardFilmography

The Lost Stooges

Synopsis: This documentary, narrated by respected film critic Leonard Maltin, focuses on the year or so that The Three Stooges spent at MGM studios, from 1933 to 1934. At the time, the trio -- Moe Howard, Larry Fine and newest Stooge Jerry, better known as Curly Howard, were still sidemen to Ted Healy. The Read More

Stoogemania

Actors: Josh Mostel, Melanie Chartoff, Mark Holton, Sid Caesar, Patrick de Santis

Synopsis: This comedy fuses Three Stooges clips with a storyline about a "Stooge Maniac" who is so obsessed with the comedians his sanity comes into question. Josh Mostel plays Stooge devotee Howard F. Howard, and Melanie Chartoff is Beverly, the woman of his dreams. Howard's condition is analyzed by Dr. Read More

The Making of the Stooges

Actors: Steve Allen

The MGM Three Stooges Festival

Actors: Ted Healy, Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Synopsis: This compilation film includes clips of the Three Stooges from musicals and comedies such as Beer and Pretzels, Dancing Lady, Nertsery Rhymes, and Plane Nuts, all filmed in 1933, and the Big Idea (1934), and others. Included along with excerpts of the Stooges' slapstick acts are musical numbers Read More

Half-Wits Holiday

Synopsis: Filmed in 1946 but held over until January of 1947, Half-Wits Holiday proved a rather sad occasion for the Three Stooges. A remake of the earlier Hoi Polloi, in which a professor wages that he can turn the three dimwits into perfect gentlemen. Sadly, Curly Howard, who had been ailing all year Read More

Hold That Lion

Synopsis: A fine Three Stooges two-reel comedy, Hold That Lion is proof positive that the underrated Shemp Howard was a worthy replacement for the ailing Curly Howard and no mere stop-gap measure. The three dimwits play heirs going after the villain, Ichabod Slipp (Kenneth MacDonald), who absconded with Read More

Uncivil Warbirds

Synopsis: In this two-reel comedy, the Three Stooges found themselves caught in the middle of the war between the states, a setting not visited by the zany team since 1935's Uncivil Warriors. This time around they keep changing allegiance until three Southern Belles (Faye Williams, Eleanor Counts, and Marilyn Johnson Read More

The Three Troubledoers

Synopsis: While it was not one of the best latter-day Curly Howard comedies, this Three Stooges short still had enough amusing moments to get by. It opens up with the boys, dusty and worn out, reaching Dead Man's Gulch. The population of the town is rapidly dwindling, as evidenced by the sound of gunfire Read More

Beer Barrel Polecats

Synopsis: In their first released two-reel comedy of 1946, the Three Stooges are jailed for bootlegging. Their combined efforts to escape makes up the bulk of the comedy, which was heavily augmented with stock footage from So Long Mr. Chumps and In the Sweet Pie and Pie, old footage becoming an increasing Read More

Three Loan Wolves

Synopsis: A rather lackluster Three Stooges comedy short (mainly because of Curly Howard's ill health), Three Loan Wolves featured the team as owners of a pawnshop ("Here Today, Pawn Tomorrow") who suddenly become foster parents to an infant left in their store by a gangster's girlfriend (Beverly Warren). Read More

Swing Parade

Synopsis: In this musical, a struggling young singer falls in love with a nightclub owner whose father mistakes her for someone else and tries to convince her to serve a summons at the club. Fortunately, the love between the youngsters prevails. Music and happiness ensues. Songs include: Stormy Weather" Read More

G.I. Wanna Go Home

Synopsis: The postwar housing shortage played a large role in this Three Stooges two-reeler, which cast the boys as returning G.I.s who cannot marry their fiancées (Judy Malcolm, Ethelreda Leopold, and Doris Houck) until they find proper living quarters. Despite the fact that popular Stooges veterans Read More

Monkey Businessmen

Synopsis: The Three Stooges are inept electricians in this comic short. That's no surprise since their last jobs were as peanut brittle breakers. After everyone, including the boss, gets shocked at least once, the boys are finally fired. This trying experience inspires them to take a vacation and they wind Read More

Rhythm and Weep

Synopsis: The Three Stooges -- Moe, Larry, and Curly -- become suicidal when thrown out of the 26th vaudeville theater in a row in this average two-reel farce from Columbia Pictures. Deciding to "off" themselves from the roof of a high-rise building, they encounter a trio of chorus girls (Gloria Patrice Read More

Three Little Pirates

Synopsis: This was Curly Howard's next to last film as a member of the Three Stooges. He would collapse from a stroke while filming Half-Wits Holiday, and his illness would end his career. Even though he wasn't well during his last few shorts, Curly's comic timing was usually flawless, and he's especially Read More

A Bird in the Head

Synopsis: This is the first Three Stooges short that Edward Bernds directed. However, Curly Howard had begun suffering the series of strokes that would eventually sideline him, and he wasn't up to speed here. To save Bernds' job, producer Hugh McCollum held the film back until the director and the boys made Read More

Idiots Deluxe

Synopsis: The Three Stooges co-star with a bear for much of this short. It begins in a courtroom where Moe is on trial for assaulting Curly and Larry (one wonders why this premise didn't occur earlier to any of the Columbia shorts writers). "I'm a sick man," Moe insists, and he tells his story -- his nerves Read More

If a Body Meets a Body

Synopsis: Written, produced, and directed by the White brothers, Jules and Jack, this two-reeler starred the Three Stooges in a traditional haunted house setting. They arrive at the spooky mansion for the reading of a will, only to find the lawyer murdered. Locked up with the rest of the potential heirs Read More

Booby Dupes

Synopsis: In this, their second two-reel comedy of 1945, the Three Stooges play fishmongers who decide to buy a boat and catch their own fish. Unfortunately, their "new" boat proves to be an old wreck and sinks in the middle of the ocean. Surviving on a dinghy, the Stooges wave a paint-splattered flag to Read More

Three Pests in a Mess

Synopsis: In their first two-reel comedy of 1945, the Three Stooges mistakenly believe that Curly killed a man (actually a store mannequin) and attempt to dispose of the body in, of all things, a pet cemetery. Three Pests in a Mess is actually a remake of El Brendel's 1941 two-reeler Ready, Willing but Read More

Micro-Phonies

Synopsis: A little over a year after this Three Stooges short was made, Curly Howard would suffer a stroke and go into retirement. But even though he was often ill during this period, he still did some of the best work of his career. He's in top form for this comedy, a favorite among Stooge fanatics. The Read More

Crash Goes the Hash

Synopsis: While not among their very best, this Three Stooges short is loaded with funny moments. Fuller Bull (Vernon Dent), managing editor of the Daily News, has just fired all his reporters because they have no information on the immanent wedding of Prince Shaam of Ubeedarn to the widowed socialite, Mrs. Read More

Busy Buddies

Synopsis: When their short-order restaurant -- The Jive Cafe -- only serves up mounting bills, the Three Stooges enter Curly in a cow-milking contest. Busy Buddies was one of the team's lesser two-reel comedies and demonstrated only too well that a hectic schedule was taking its toll on especially Curly Read More

The Yoke's on Me

Synopsis: In this patriotic two-reel comedy, the Three Stooges are labeled 4-F by the draft board, aiding the war effort instead by becoming farmers. Operating a run down ostrich ranch, the Stooges manage to catch a group of Japanese escapees. Rustic comedians Bob McKenzie and Emmett Lynn joined the Stooges Read More

Idle Roomers

Synopsis: Although this isn't one of the better Three Stooges shorts, it still has its moments. The boys play bellhops at "Hotel Snazzy Plaza," and fight with each other to get an opportunity to give special service to an attractive woman. Unfortunately, she has a mean-tempered husband who happens to be a Read More

Gents Without Cents

Synopsis: Columbia's shorts producer (and sometime Stooges director), Jules White, was especially fired up with the patriotic spirit during World War II. Like many Three Stooges comedies made in the early '40s, this one has quite a number of references to the war. It begins with the boys working on their Read More

No Dough Boys

Synopsis: During WWII, many Three Stooges shorts were more than just a little propaganda-laden. It may be painful now to watch the Japanese stereotypes and jokes, but at the time Americans found it necessary to drum up as much hatred as possible for their adversaries. Here, the Stooges are playing Japanese Read More

They Stooge to Conga

Synopsis: While The Three Stooges made a number of propaganda-laced comedies during World War II, the Axis references are relatively slight here until the end. It starts off with the threesome offering their services as "Fix-All Fixers." A frighteningly plain woman calls them over to fix a broken doorbell. Read More

Spook Louder

Actors: Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Synopsis: {Jules White, the head of the short subjects department at Columbia, steered quite a few Three Stooges comedies into propaganda territory during World War II. While not as forcefully patriotic as some of the others, this quirky short (directed by Del Lord) takes a few potshots at the Japanese. It Read More

A Gem of a Jam

Synopsis: This clever Three Stooges comedy opens, like many of their films do, with a sign: "Drs. Heart-Burns and Belcher." But that's not referring to the Stooges -- they're merely the night janitors, and not very good ones. They have the usual round of mishaps, the funniest being when Curly gets his head Read More

Back from the Front

Synopsis: The Three Stooges join the war effort in this two-reel comedy when they board an enemy submarine masquerading as Hitler (Moe), Goebbels (Larry), and Göring (Curly). With their unique brand of anarchy, the Stooges soon take over the vessel. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide Read More

Three Little Twirps

Synopsis: The Three Stooges were still in their prime when this short (the last one of theirs directed by Harry Edwards) was filmed. Larry, Moe and Curly play the most inept poster hangers imaginable and they are caught by their boss just as Curly is tearing his head through one of the posters. It turns out Read More

I Can Hardly Wait

Synopsis: From the references to "Japs" and rations, it's clear that this is one of the Three Stooges shorts filmed during World War II. The boys are defense workers who build airplanes. They've finished for the day and are frying up some ham and eggs, to be divided evenly. Curly complains about his Read More

Higher Than a Kite

Synopsis: The Three Stooges are literally dropped on wartime Berlin in this two-reel comedy, one of their weakest. They play auto mechanics hiding from an enemy in what they think is a pipe. It is actually a bomb and soon they find themselves, unscathed, behind enemy lines. They disguise themselves as Read More

Dizzy Pilots

Synopsis: The Three Stooges, as the Wrong Bothers, aided the war effort by inventing a new plane in this below-average two-reel comedy. Actually, they are attempting to avoid the draft but when their plane, the Buzzard, fails miserably, they march off to war. Richard Fiske, formerly a busy supporting player Read More

Phony Express

Synopsis: In spite of its name, Peaceful Gulch is riddled by bullets and bad guys. The sheriff needs some men either brave enough or stupid enough to get rid of the varmints. When he sees a wanted poster for The Three Stooges (their crime is vagrancy and the reward is fifty cents, or three for a dollar), he Read More

Dizzy Detectives

Synopsis: Gorillas, both fake and (supposedly) real, play a big part in this amusing Three Stooges comedy two-reeler. The boys are policemen masquerading as night watchmen in an attempt to trap a burglar dressed in a gorilla suit. They catch a gorilla, all right, but the beast proves to be real. The Read More

Even as I.O.U

Synopsis: In one of their all-time most hilariously insane comedy two-reelers, the Three Stooges save a destitute mother and her child by winning the big race -- with monies "borrowed" from the child's piggy bank. They are then cheated by a ventriloquist into buying a retired race horse, in effect losing Read More

Loco Boy Makes Good

Synopsis: This Three Stooges comedy opens with the boys being tossed out of a flea bag hotel -- they were eight months behind on the dollar-a-month rent. To make money, they scheme to go to a posh hotel and have Curly slip on a bar of soap, then they can sue the establishment and really clean up. Read More

Three Smart Saps

Synopsis: Three lovely young ladies have to rely on their fiancés -- the Three Stooges -- to get their father out of prison. Surprisingly, their trust is not misplaced. The girls' father is a prison warden who has been overthrown and put behind bars by a gangster. The Stooges decide that their best tactic Read More

Cactus Makes Perfect

Synopsis: The first part of this Three Stooges comedy is pretty amusing, but it's even funnier if you realize that the actor playing the Stooges' long-suffering mother is writer Monte Collins in drag (he co-wrote the story to this picture). Ma Stooge lives with her boys in a humble farmhouse, but Curly has Read More

What's the Matador

Synopsis: Parodying the previous year's Blood and Sand, this two-reel comedy starred the Three Stooges as vaudeville entertainers involved with a fiery senorita (Suzanne Kaaren) and her dangerous husband while performing south of the border. The Stooges used both plot and copius stock footage from What's Read More

Matri-Phony

Synopsis: This Three Stooges short takes place in the days of "Ancient Erysipelas," where the lusty Octopus Grabus is emperor and Ye Olde Pottery and Stone Works is run by Mohicus, Larrycus and Curleycue, "the biggest chiselers in town." The emperor is on the search for a new wife, but the young lovely that Read More

Sock-A-Bye-Baby

Synopsis: Because there's not much plot to this Three Stooges short, it has almost a sitcom-like feel. It's late at night and a tearful woman leaves a baby on the doorstep of a home -- which happens to be where the Stooges live. The infant's cries rouse the boys out of a sound sleep, and once they find the Read More

Dutiful But Dumb

Synopsis: The Three Stooges star as inept photographers in this comic short. When they screw up their latest assignment -- getting a clandestine photo of a movie star and his new bride -- their boss (Vernon Dent) has had about enough of them. He sends them to Bulgaria for their next job -- mainly because Read More

In the Sweet Pie and Pie

Synopsis: Hard-working Columbia starlets Mary Ainslee, Dorothy Appleby, and Ethelreda Leopold take center stage in this Three Stooges comedy, one of the year's best two-reelers. They play society girls, who, to get their hands on an inheritance, marry three death row inmates (guess who?). When the boys are Read More

All the World's a Stooge

Synopsis: When wealthy Mrs. Bullion informs her husband, Ajax that they are adopting a "little refugee" -- a common event amongst society people during World War II -- he is less than thrilled. But a trip to the dentist changes his perspective. Instead of getting his tooth pulled by his regular guy, Dr. I. Read More

So Long Mr. Chumps

Synopsis: In the 190 comic shorts that the Three Stooges made for Columbia, they worked at just about every blue-collar job imaginable (that is, when they were gainfully employed). Here they're street cleaners, and not very good ones. But at least they're honest -- when they find an envelope filled with oil Read More

Some More of Samoa

Synopsis: The Three Stooges are tree surgeons in this comic short. An irascible old man is driving both his wife and his nurse up a wall. But instead of being concerned about his own illness, he's worried about his tree, a rare "puglis persimmon." The Stooges, also known as the Elite Painless Tree Surgeons Read More

An Ache in Every Stake

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Synopsis: The Three Stooges play ice delivery men in this comic short. It's a hot day, and they've been cooling off in the back of the truck; in fact, Curly has gotten his head stuck inside a block of ice. After the other two Stooges free him, he bowls a strike with another block of ice and some milk Read More

I'll Never Heil Again

Synopsis: Even though The Three Stooges, as dictators of Moronica, get eaten by lions at the end of 1940's You Natzy Spy!, they're brought back to terrorize the world once again for this comic satire on Hitler and the other Axis rulers. This time, the munitions manufactures from the first short have come to Read More

Cuckoo Cavaliers

Synopsis: "It's gotta have class and gotta have beauty," the Three Stooges tell a Mexican real estate dealer in this hilarious two-reel comedy. They are looking to buy a saloon; what they get, naturally, is a beauty salon. Produced and directed by Jules White, Cuckoo Cavaliers actually had an even better Read More

From Nurse to Worse

Synopsis: This Three Stooges comedy is loaded with funny gags. The boys are painters who run into their old friend Jerry, an insurance salesman. He promises them that if they take out a policy on Curly and they prove that he has gone insane, then they can collect 500 dollars a month. So Moe wrestles the Read More

Boobs in Arms

Synopsis: World War II was just heating up, but the U.S. hadn't yet entered the fighting when the Three Stooges made this comic short. It opens with the boys selling greeting cards on the street, none too successfully. One surly guy in particular is a victim of the Stooges' harassment. To get away from his Read More

No Census, No Feeling

Synopsis: At the start of this comic short, the Three Stooges are unemployed. They've been sleeping in the awning of a swap shop and are rudely awakened when the shop owner unrolls it. After turning the store into a disaster area, the trio run away. They escape to city hall and exit as census takers. Read More

How High is Up

Synopsis: This Three Stooges comedy has no story to speak of, but it's loaded with great gags. The boys are fix-it men who are sleeping under their car. A flood of water from a fire hydrant sends them floating down the street and they wake up in front of an oncoming car. They try to get back to work, but Read More

Nutty But Nice

Synopsis: The plot to this particular Three Stooges short actually makes some sort of sense! The boys are singing waiters, known as the "Hilarious Hash Slingers," at Ye Colonial Inn. Two doctors who are having lunch are delighted at their antics and think that perhaps they can cheer up a sick little girl Read More

Three Sappy People

Synopsis: While working in a doctor's office, the Three Stooges are mistaken for psychiatrists Ziller, Zeller, and Zoller. Hired by millionaire Don Beddoe to cure his giddy wife, Lorna Gray, the Stooges proceed only to wreck a fancy dinner party as only they can. Their antics, however, cure the wife and Read More

We Want Our Mummy

Synopsis: The Three Stooges found themselves in Egypt in this typical two-reel farce, the team's second release of 1939. Hired by the respected Museum of Ancient History to return a kidnapped archaeologist (Bud Jamison), private eyes Moe, Larry, and Curly travel to the Pyramids and the Tomb of Rutentuten. Read More

Yes, We Have No Bonanza

Synopsis: In this comic short, The Three Stooges play singing waiters in a saloon out West. Their songs are accompanied by three pretty cowgirls who also work in the saloon and are their sweethearts. Unfortunately, the saloon keeper is cruel and he berates the girls, who are forced to work for him because Read More

Saved by the Belle

Synopsis: This especially wacky Three Stooges short was directed by comedian Charley Chase. The boys are traveling salesmen in the South American country of Valeska. The lazy town is only slightly stirred awake by its frequent earthquakes, nevertheless, there is a revolution brewing. The revolutionary Read More

Calling All Curs

Synopsis: In this typical Columbia two-reel comedy, the Three Stooges play dog groomers whose chief client, Symona Boniface's pooch Garçon, has been kidnapped by thieves masquerading as reporters. Never without resolve, the Stooges try to pass off a mutt as Garçon but Symona is no fool. They then enlist the Read More

A-Ducking They Did Go

Synopsis: As so often in their comic shorts, The Three Stooges start off here in the ranks of the gainfully unemployed. After an unsuccessful attempt to steal a watermelon, which lands them in trouble with a cop, the boys wind up at the offices of the Canvas Back Duck Club. The club needs some salesmen and Read More

Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise

Synopsis: The Three Stooges (Moe, Larry, and Curly), are tramps in this two-reel comedy directed by Jules White. The boys come to the assistance of the Widow Jenkins (Eva McKenzie), who has just been cheated out of her land by a couple of swindlers (Dick Curtis and Richard Fiske). Attempting to fix the Read More

Three Little Sew and Sews

Synopsis: The Three Stooges play inept Navy tailors for the Republic of Telvana in this comic short. The Admiral has been invited to a luncheon by Count Gehrol, a possible spy, but Curly intercepts the telegram and puts on the Admiral's suit himself. Moe and Larry are temporarily tossed in the brig for Read More

Violent is the Word for Curly

Synopsis: Comedian Charley Chase not only directed this two-reel farce, one of the Three Stooges' most popular, but also contributed a novelty song, "Swingin' the Alphabet." The Stooges are gas station attendants mistaken for European professors and hired by the Mildew Women's College. When the real Read More

Wee Wee Monsieur

Actors: William Irving

Synopsis: The Three Stooges play aspiring artists in this comic short. They're honing their craft in "Paris -- somewhere in France" (as the title card helpfully offers). The boys are no better at art and music than they were at the blue-collar jobs they had in their other films. They're eight months behind Read More

Tassels in the Air

Synopsis: This Three Stooges short was one of a handful directed by comedian Charley Chase. While the trio's films with Chase were no less funny than the ones they made with Jules White or any of the other directors in the Columbia shorts department, though the violence was toned down in favor of other Read More

Termites of 1938

Synopsis: Almost like a special bonus, the slapstick of this Three Stooges short is sprinkled with a few dashes of subtle humor. When a husband insists on going fishing, leaving his wife mate-less for a big society bash, her friend suggests she call the Acme Escort Service. "I hope they're discriminating," Read More

Three Missing Links

Synopsis: In this Three Stooges comedy, the boys wind up starring in a big movie. First, of course, they start off on the low end of the blue-collar scale -- they're janitors for a movie studio. B.O. Botswaddle, president of Super Terrific Productions, is looking for a co-star for his temperamental leading Read More

Healthy, Wealthy and Dumb

Synopsis: The Three Stooges strike it rich -- at least temporarily -- in this comic short. While Moe and Larry are playing cards (using pancakes as chips), Curly is trying to come up with a winning slogan for a radio contest involving Stickfast glue. The only result of his efforts is that Moe accidentally Read More

Mutts to You

Synopsis: This Three Stooges short was one of four directed by comedian Charley Chase. The boys play dog-groomers who use a conveyor belt contrivance that would make Rube Goldberg proud -- it includes six mechanical hands to wash the pooch, and Curly rides a stationary bicycle to run the rinse. A couple has Read More

Start Cheering

Actors: Jimmy Durante, Joan Perry, Charles Starrett

Synopsis: Start Cheering is Columbia Pictures' idea of a college musical: Practically everyone in the cast is past the age of 30. Charles Starrett plays a movie star who wearies of Hollywood and decides to get a college education. He enrolls incognito in a small university, much to the discomfort of his Read More

Flat Foot Stooges

Synopsis: As in their earlier False Alarms (1936), the Three Stooges play firemen in this two-reel farce directed by comedian Charley Chase. The engine company in question is somewhat old fashioned and employs horse-powered engines. In an effort to upgrade the equipment, a salesman mistakenly fuels his Read More

Three Dumb Clucks

Synopsis: This Three Stooges comedy is actually a send up of Universal's Deanna Durbin film, Three Smart Girls. But instead of a trio of young lovelies who are out to save their father from marrying a gold digger, we have jailbirds Larry, Moe and Curly. They break out of prison when they receive a letter Read More

Grips, Grunts and Groans

Synopsis: In this classic Three Stooges short, the boys are tramps on the lam from the railroad police when they happen in on an athletic club. They are enlisted as sparring partners, but when a wrestler, Bustoff, takes a liking to them, they are given the tough assignment of keeping him sober until his big Read More

The Sitter-Downers

Synopsis: The ever-growing unionization during the 1930s forms the very basis for this Three Stooges short. The Stooges are courting three sisters -- Corabelle, Florabelle and Dorabelle. Unfortunately, their father, Mr. Bell, refuses to give the happy couples his blessing. Since they can't wed the girls Read More

Playing the Ponies

Synopsis: The Three Stooges are restaurateurs who get into the horseracing business in this comic short. Quitting the restaurant is probably not such a bad idea; Curly makes chicken soup by pouring hot water over a chicken carcass, and makes fresh filet of sole by casting a line out the window into the Read More

Cash and Carry

Synopsis: In her third Three Stooges short, pretty Harley Wood (aka Harlene Wood) played a young girl living with her crippled kid brother (Sonny Bupp) in a junkyard shack. The two unfortunates are saved by the Stooges, who have come into possession of what they believe to be a treasure map. The treasure Read More

Dizzy Doctors

Synopsis: This Three Stooges comedy is especially fast-paced. The boys wake up at their usual time -- 11 a.m. -- and fix themselves breakfast, only to have their wives come home and threaten divorce if they don't find work. So they land jobs as salesmen for Brighto, a miracle medicine that "brightens old Read More

Goofs and Saddles

Synopsis: The Three Stooges actually play different characters here (or at least they have different names, different hairstyles, and different mustaches) -- Curly is Buffalo Bilious, Moe is Wild Bill Hiccup, and Larry is Just Plain Bill. They are General Muster's three best scouts, and now that the Indian Read More

Back to the Woods

Synopsis: The Three Stooges are lawbreakers in merry olde England in this comic short. For their crimes, the Stooges are sent to the American colonies to defend the Pilgrim settlement against Indians. They arrive, muskets in hand, and proceed to flirt with the daughters of the governor (Vernon Dent). But Read More

Disorder in the Court

Synopsis: Directed by Jack White (under his usual pseudonym of Preston Black), this two-reel courtroom caper is, by many, regarded as the best of the Three Stooges' early comedies. Moe, Larry, and Curly are witnesses in a murder trial involving a dancer (Suzanne Kaaren) from "The Black Bottom Cafe," the Read More

Half-Shot Shooters

Synopsis: Even a run-of-the-mill Three Stooges short had its moments, as this one proves. It begins in November, 1918, and Larry, Moe and Curly are sleeping through the end of World War I. The sergeant (Stanley Blystone) wakes them up to tell them the war is over -- and to abuse them, blacking Curly and Read More

False Alarms

Synopsis: The Three Stooges play firemen in this comic short. While the other firemen are off fighting a fire, the Stooges are still in the shower. As a result, the Captain wants to fire them, but they beg for another chance. He gives in, but orders them to clean the hoses. Curly rolls them out onto the Read More

Ants in the Pantry

Actors: Larry Fine, Curly Howard, Moe Howard

Synopsis: The Three Stooges play slap-happy exterminators in this comic short. The Lightning Pest Control Company is having trouble staying afloat. "This rat-catching business is going to the dogs!" moans manager A. Mouser. He calls for his three workers -- Moe, Larry and Curly -- and tells them to go out Read More

A Pain in the Pullman

Synopsis: This Three Stooges short is a remake of the Thelma Todd/Zasu Pitts comedy, Show Business. The Stooges are staying at Mrs. Hammond Eggerley's Theatrical Apartments, where they're behind on the rent and haven't eaten in days. Curly, in fact, is roasting his shoe and wants to cook their monkey, who Read More

Movie Maniacs

Synopsis: The Three Stooges try to break into show business in this Columbia short subject. They're first seen as stowaways on a train headed for Hollywood. While Curly is cooking pancakes (one of which sticks to the boxcar's ceiling) and Larry is ironing sooty burn marks into a pair of Moe's white pants Read More

Three Little Beers

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Hoi Polloi

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Synopsis: This is one of the earlier Three Stooges shorts, and one of the funniest. It opens on an exclusive restaurant where two wealthy gents are having an argument -- what really makes the man, heredity or environment? They wager ten thousand dollars and take off in search of three men to use in their Read More

Pardon My Scotch

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Synopsis: Prohibition has recently ended, and alcoholic beverages are very much in demand in this Three Stooges short. A druggist is furious because his liquor supplier can't come through with the goods. While he is arguing over the phone, the Stooges show up -- they're carpenters who are supposed to Read More

Uncivil Warriors

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Pop Goes the Easel

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Synopsis: It's the Great Depression and The Three Stooges are having a hard time finding work. And no wonder -- they hold up signs looking for completely inappropriate jobs. Moe is offering to be a social secretary, while Larry's sign insists, "Will do anything. Position as bridge instructor preferred." Read More

Restless Knights

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Synopsis: This comedy short puts The Three Stooges into a medieval setting and opens with a cameo from Walter Brennan as the boys' old father. It turns out that the Stooges are the progeny of a chambermaid to the King of Anesthesia, and they head to court to offer their services to the young Queen (Geneva Mitchell Read More

Horses' Collars

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Synopsis: The Three Stooges are in fine form for their fifth Columbia short. Clyde Bruckman, who worked with silent luminaries Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, was the director, and it's obvious that he added quite a bit to the fun. The boys are working for the Hyden Zeke Detective Agency, as evidenced by Read More

Three Little Pigskins

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard, Lucille Ball, Gertie Green

Synopsis: In their fourth two-reeler for Columbia, the Three Stooges are mistaken for college football heroes by a beautiful gangster's moll. The latter was played by a very young Lucille Ball, who would always credit the Stooges with introducing her to "slapstick and physical comedy." According to Jack Read More

Men in Black

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard, Dell Henderson, Jeanie Roberts

Synopsis: Although it was nominated for an Academy Award, the third Three Stooges comedy two-reeler for Columbia has not dated well. A spoof of MGM's Clark Gable vehicle Men in White, Men in Black was a rather shapeless romp in which Moe, Larry, and Curly played dumbbell interns at the Lost Arms Hospital. Read More

Punch Drunks

Crew: Screen Story

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Synopsis: While this was the second short that The Three Stooges shot for Columbia, this one is the first where they use their own names (and, thankfully, they don't have to talk in couplets, like they did in their first, Woman Haters). Stooge Moe Howard plays a down-on-his-luck fight manager. While eating Read More

Hollywood Party

Actors: Jimmy Durante, Charles Butterworth, Lupe Velez, Polly Moran

Synopsis: Hollywood Party was planned as a lavish, star-studded MGM musical titled Hollywood Revue of 1933. Under the less-than-sterling guidance of "kicked upstairs" MGM producer Harry Rapf, production dragged on interminably, using up the talents of five directors (none of whom were credited) and Read More

The Big Idea

Actors: Ted Healy

Woman Haters

Actors: Marjorie White, Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Synopsis: Speaking all their dialogue in rhyme, confirmed misogynists Moe and Curly try to break up Larry's marriage with perky Marjorie White. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide Read More

Fugitive Lovers

Actors: Robert Montgomery, Madge Evans, Ted Healy, Nat Pendleton, C. Henry Gordon

Synopsis: Though it's also a "bus" picture, MGM's Fugitive Lovers is as different from Columbia's It Happened One Night as oil and water. Escaping from her gangster boyfriend Legs (Nat Pendleton), chorus girl Letty (Madge Evans) boards a Greyhound bus bound for California. Likewise a passenger -- albeit a Read More

Myrt and Marge

Actors: Myrtle Vail, Trixie Friganza, Eddie Foy, Jr., John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: Were it not for the diligence of old-time radio buffs and Three Stooges fans, the 1933 Universal epic Myrt and Marge might have remained in (deserved) obscurity. The film was inspired by The Story of Myrt and Marge, a popular radio serial which ran from 1931 to 1946. Repeating their radio roles, Myrtle Vail Read More

Dancing Lady

Actors: Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Franchot Tone, May Robson, Winnie Lightner, Fred Astaire

Synopsis: Virtually everybody except President Roosevelt was in the lavish MGM backstage musical Dancing Lady. Joan Crawford stars as Janie Barlow, an impoverished dancer reduced to working in a seedy Manhattan burlesque house. While on a slumming party with his society friend, wealthy young Tod Newton (Franchot Tone Read More

Meet the Baron

Actors: Jack Pearl, Jimmy Durante, ZaSu Pitts, Ted Healy, Edna May Oliver

Synopsis: In this comedy, a man masquerading as the notorious Baron Munchausen and his partner arrive from the African jungles and create quite a stir in New York. Eventually he ends up a women's college involved in a number of interesting musical production numbers. Look for an early appearance by the "The Read More

Plane Nuts

Actors: Ted Healy

Hello Pop!

Actors: Ted Healy

Beer and Pretzels

Actors: Ted Healy

Turn Back the Clock

Actors: Lee Tracy, Mae Clarke, Otto Kruger, George Barbier, Peggy Shannon

Synopsis: Lee Tracy is a middle-aged, middle-class man dissatisfied with his life. If he'd only married the girl he wanted to and had been a smarter businessman (he believes), things would have been better. One morning, Tracy wakes up and discovers he's been transported twenty years in the past. Armed with Read More

Nertsery Rhymes

Actors: Ted Healy