Moe Howard's autobiography is just the kinda book that breaks up the doldrums the same way a dose of Fletcher's breaks up the caga capacity occupying your lower intestinal tract. Given just how much the Three Stooges have become downright cultural legends o'er the years this is the kinda book that a fan really would like even if, as you'd expect, Moe plays it safe and show-bizzy and leaves out some of the shadier aspects of what went on behind the scenes. One one had that's great if you wanna retain your old kiddiehood images of what these guys meant to your own suburban slob watching tee-vee in your stocking feet self, but eh, sometimes I pretty much wanna hear the dirt on some of those celebrities who coulda been real jerkoffs even if they happen to be people who I had admired my whole life. After all, when I was a kid I thought Jerry Lewis was the greatest and look how he REALLY turned out to be!
Not that Moe holds back on a whole lotta sick sagas that a fella would wanna know. Unfortunately he doesn't dish out enough regarding his old pal and adversary Ted Healy which really woulda juiced up this book considering how Healy pretty much forced Shemp Howard outta the act after chasing him around with a hypo filled with heroin! And that's not forgetting the aspects of Healy's own death at the hands of a severe beating from Wallace Beery. At least Moe gives us a whole lotta good poopie-pee-pee stories that will really appeal to your cruder instincts such as the time when Shemp bomped himself on the head really hard after relieving himself under a short boardwalk or better yet the one where Moe has this dream about barbecuing chicken halves when one of the chickens got loose and was flying around shooting sparks outta its own poop chute thus catching the curtains on fire, at which point the only way Moe could put it out was by urinating on it! As well as urinating on Mrs. Moe who conked her hubby hard on the head complaining that he got her all wet! Too bad this all happened during the Production Code days because hey, something like that woulda been a HOWLER had it popped up in a Stooges film!
Yeah, its this kind of DISGUSTO that I really go for and thankfully Moe decided not to hold back on his own (and Shemp's) foibles proving that even the high and mighty amongst us can be just as careless in the defecation department as the rest of us.
As I've said, most of this consists of humorous and informative enough ramblings all done up in a talk-to-you way about everything from Moe's childhood appearing in Vitagraph movies to getting into showbiz and eventually making a bigger contribution to the benefit of whacked out turdlers and teenbos world-wide than the likes of Joan Baez ever did. Which is probably one reason why the Stooges are still remembered fondly while the remark one would most likely hear if the latter's name was mentioned these days would be "Joan who???"
Coulda used more old snaps (even a Vitagraph frame blowup woulda been nice amidst the publicity shots and moom stills that make up a large portion of this read) and maybe even more potty poopie dirt woulda jangled the thing up a bit. But why should I quibble? MOE HOWARD AND THE THREE STOOGES is a nice happy slice of showbiz history (the kind we like) that's presented to us in the same lighthearted and sanitized fambly entertainment way that an episode of THE MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW was. And like, considering all the times Moe was on that afternoon tee-vee delight wouldn't it just figure!
I loved that book when it came out. Over the years, having moved from place to place with me and spending years in boxes under other things, the book has gotten seriously bent, even though it's hardcover. Some nit-picky jerks have taken Moe to task for minor factual errors and the like, forgetting that there was no internet or IMDB when Moe wrote this. Also, I'd bet that all those titles of the shorts blurred together for Moe over the years, and some of them might have had production titles that differed from the release titles. Moe was too busy making the next short or feature to worry about past shorts. Charles Starrett, who also labored at Columbia in the B-western unit while Moe was laboring at the shorts unit, would never know the titles of films when fans would later mention them because many of his features just had numbers or filler-titles as they were being shot, and since so many came out each year and he was working around the clock filming them, he did not follow and keep a record of their releases. It was great seeing Moe on Mike Douglas (and in the feature film DOCTOR DEATH) in the early 70's. He will always be a hero to me! The first film I was ever taken to see at a theater as a child was THE THREE STOOGES GO AROUND THE WORLD IN A DAZE, which my older sister took me to when I was 4 or 5.
ReplyDeleteBest paired with his book "I Stooged To Conquer."
ReplyDeleteI have a hard poke in the eye for anyone who doesn't love the Stooges.
Moe sure was fixated on bodily functions. (((The 3 Stooges)))
ReplyDeleteGive me Laurel & Hardy or WC Fields. Patriots, not psychos.
Can someone who knows Anonymous give him the big double-eye poke?
ReplyDelete