Woman Haters (1934)

This is simply their worst. I love the Stooges and can watch their stuff for hours at a time, but this one is unwatchable. It's worse even than anything they did with Joe Besser. Joe, at least, was funny in his own right, even if he didn't really fit well with Moe and Larry; if you tuned out the fact that it was the Three Stooges and thought of it as Mr. Jillson from the Joey Bishop show with a couple of supporting players, those shorts could be mildly entertaining. But no such mental sleight of hand is possible here. This is Moe, Larry, and Curly; they were never anything other than the Three Stooges, and this one just doesn't work.Granted, it was their first effort as the Three Stooges sans Ted Healy; they were a new act, they probably had little control over content, and studio executives hadn't figured out yet how to best utilize their unique talents. I shudder to think what kind of place the world would be today if some genius at Columbia had watched this and liked it and decided that this would set the tone for the rest of the trio's career. Fortunately, that didn't happen. They would come back with Punch Drunks (which they co-wrote) and establish just who they were once and for all.Not that the premise itself - three men make a pact to stay away from women, one breaks the pact and falls in love - didn't have potential. But the device of having them spend the entire time talking to each other in verse just doesn't work. And in hindsight, with their entire body of work in front of us, this just isn't THEM. They were the best at what they did, but this was something else, and it just didn't suit them.

I’m virtually a beginner when it comes to The Three Stooges: I’d seen a few of their films – and episodes from the animated series – as a kid (this short being one of them, incidentally) but not enough to rank them judiciously in the pantheon of classic comedy.Anyway, this has been advertised as “a musical novelty” – influenced by the work of Ernst Lubitsch, no doubt – with all dialogue written in verse! In essence, it lies somewhere between Laurel & Hardy (with the train setting recalling BERTH MARKS [1929] in particular) and The Marx Bros. – but emerging, in the long run, as less sympathetic than either. The gang joins the titular club but Larry, practically blackmailed into marriage, attempts to keep his status from pals Moe and Curley – but can’t, because his spouse turns out to be a flirt who has her eyes on them as well! Walter Brennan appears briefly as the train conductor.I have to say that the slap-happy antics of the comic trio gets tiresome after a while. To be honest, I wonder how I’ll be able to stick the relentless display of such childish behavior through 19 Stooges shorts I’ve got scheduled (given that I’ve just acquired a copy of the official Columbia 2-Disc collection)...

Woman Haters is far from the best of the Three Stooges, but it is a nice start to the Columbia shorts and does offer a unique and interesting thing or two. The plot sees the boys joining the Woman Haters Club – a club that prohibits its members from carrying on with women. But no sooner than they become members, Larry (they actually have character names, but they don't really matter) finds himself at the altar. He does his best to keep Moe and Curly from finding out he's secretly gotten married and he does his best to keep his new wife from finding out about the Woman Haters club. As expected, a great deal of eye poking and head knocking ensues.The two best things Woman Haters has going for it (beyond its curiosity value) is the rhyming scheme of the dialogue and Marjorie White as Larry's wife. While I've seen some complaints about the rhyming dialogue, it worked for me. I thought it was very clever. Now, it might not have worked for a full feature, but for a two-reeler, it's okay. As for Marjorie White, she more than capable of holding her own with Moe, Larry, and Curly – more so than most women I can think of off the top of my head who appeared in other Three Stooges shorts. It's too bad she didn't live long enough to see where her career might have taken her.

We begin with a meeting of the Women Haters Club, dedicated to the idea that "romance is a crime!"What's unusual about this short movie is that all the dialog is done in rhyme. I thought it would be kind of stupid but, to be honest, a lot of it is very clever - for about five minutes. Whoever wrote this did a pretty good job. The music is nice, too, but five minutes was enough. It's cool at first but wears thin in a hurry.The emphasis on poetry and song drastically diminished the slapstick humor, the normal wisecracks and the atmosphere that made The Three Stooges what they were. I can see why this early experiment was just that: an experiment, and thankfully a one-time experience.Just give me back the Stooges as they are - crude, violent, stupid and funny - with Curly and his squeaky voice, not singing poets, for cryin' out loud. This turned out to be one of the longest 20 minutes I've ever endured.