Nov 07 2007
The Three Stooges Collection, Volume One: 1934-1936
Like just about every other American male, I loved the Stooges. I don’t recall which cable channel had them on all the time about six years ago, but I watched religiously. I have refrained from buying any of the “themed” VHS or DVD sets over the years in hopes that the companies would do a proper job and release them in some sort of complete set. This hasn’t happened yet, but things are changing.
I just found out today that Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has released the first volume of The Three Stooges Collection. It contains all 19 shorts from the first three years of their work with Columbia Pictures. My gosh, how did I miss this news?!
Anyway, here’s a review of the DVD set, which was released on October 30th.
The shorts in this collection look outstanding; all except Whoops, I’m an Indian! look like they were derived from the original nitrate camera negative and are incredibly sharp, so much so that it’s easy to see how many of the sight gags were done (visible wires and hidden supports, etc.) Whoops is grainier but still looks fine; this was one of the harder shorts to see over the years, so maybe the negative was lost or had deteriorated. In most cases the shorts look almost new, and many begin with a few seconds of footage – National Recovery Act (NRA) logos, music preceding Columbia’s torch lady – not seen in years. Stooge fans have been asking about a few seconds of Curly footage missing from the previous DVD release of Three Little Beers, but that too has been reinstated.
Judging by their review, it seems Sony has done exactly what we fans have been looking for for many years. This set will definitely be on my wish list for DeepDiscount’s sale.
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