In the last few weeks, I've had pretty much the same conversation with at least three separate friends…not the guys in the above photo but about them. There's a new movie coming out in which current actors portray the Three Stooges and these Stooge fans are worried it will sully the good name of Stooge. My attitude in response is like, "Really? You're concerned about the dignity of the Three Stooges?" I submit that if you think the Three Stooges ever had any dignity to lose, you don't "get" the Three Stooges.
Did the Three Stooges ever turn down a script? Did Moe ever say to their director, "My character wouldn't say that"? More to the point, did Larry ever say, "No, Moe wouldn't hit me with one of those"?
I knew Larry a bit. I briefly met Moe Howard, Joe Besser and "Curly" Joe DeRita but I spent a few hours of quality time with Larry Fine when he was living in the Motion Picture Country Home. If you mentioned one of their films to him by name, he'd display no recognition of the title but he might wonder aloud, "Is that the one where Moe hit me with the tire iron?" Oddly enough, I hear Dame Judith Dench asks the same thing if you quiz her about anything by Shakespeare.
I've told this before here but one of the saddest/strangest things I ever saw on a TV news show occurred the day Larry died. The local CBS crew rushed cameras over to Moe's house and interviewed him on his front lawn. Moe was crying and his lower lip was trembling so much, his mouth was literally out of sync with his own voice. He was sobbing and saying, "He was my best friend…he was like a brother to me…I loved him so." And as he was saying this, they began rolling footage of Moe smashing pottery over Larry's head, running a saw across his skull and ripping out handfuls of Larry's hair.
I loved the Three Stooges. I still love the Three Stooges. I will always love the Three Stooges and there's no movie anyone can make that will change that.
And one of the things I love about them is that they had absolutely no standards. They would do anything, anything. You know how freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose? Well, those guys were as free as a human being in show business could be. They had no standards to live up to or even down to. Someone would say to Moe, "Hey, how about in the next scene, you drop your pants, then stick your brother's nose in a light socket and electrocute him?" and Moe would just ask, "Okay, which side should I be on?"
One friend of mine was concerned this new movie might bomb and lessen the name and glory of the real Stooges. Naah. I don't think that kind of hurt happens very often to something people really love. I always cite the anecdote about the author whose great book was made into a crappy movie. That happens. And when it happened in his case, people said to him, "Oh, they ruined your book" and he'd reply, "No, my book is right over there on that shelf, unchanged."
Here's the thing to remember…
Let's imagine it's forty-some-odd years ago and you're a devout fan of the Three Stooges. You worship at the altar of Ted Healy, yearn to be married by Emil Sitka and whenever you're in a hospital, you listen to the P.A. system, hoping to hear a call for "Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard." You decide that what you would most like in the world would be to actually own and have in your own home, the complete works of your favorite comedy team.
Well, you couldn't do it.
Not in that world possible. Not then, anyway. In the pre-Betamax era, that meant buying bootleg 16mm prints. I had friends who had a few and they were expensive and hard to find…and when you did find one, it was usually a scratchy TV print full of splices and with scenes missing. You could have spent thousands of bucks and not amassed even half the body of work of Shemp.
Today, you can go to someplace like Amazon and order non-bootleg, complete, restored copies of all the Stooges shorts (with special features included) for about what you once would have paid then for one of the lesser Bessers. They've been issuing them in volumes and the complete collection comes out in June. Ninety bucks and it's all yours.
I don't think anything can besmirch the rep of the Three Stooges. At worst, the new movie will be a mess of bad impersonations…and from the trailers I've seen, it actually looks pretty decent. But even if it sucks, so what? The actual Three Stooges are available in all their glory on DVD…and that author's book is still over there on that shelf, unchanged.
I have friends who squirm and moan and speak of heresy when one of their childhood favorites is updated in some new version. I will admit that some of those resurrections have been pretty awful and that they frequently miss the whole point of what they're adapting. But at worst, all that results is a bad movie or TV show which will soon be forgotten. So long as the original is available, it speaks for itself.
Sorry but I just plain do not believe it's possible to "ruin" the Three Stooges. Look at some of the later movies they made. If they couldn't destroy their own reputations with that stuff, nothing anyone does today will do any damage.
And besides, folks…this is the Three Stooges we're talking about. For God's sake.