Beer and Pretzels

The Three Stooges got their name because in fact they were 3 stooges to comedian Ted Healy. The way Moe slapped the other two around was about the way Healy treated all three. A perfect example is this short Beer And Pretzels.

The guys can't keep jobs because Healy can't keep his hands off the women. But they do get a job after the Stooges obey an offhand comment. But the usual chaos ensues.

The guys are a lot younger looking in these Healy shorts from MGM..

Beer and Pretzels (1933)

*** (out of 4)

Ted Healy and his 3 Stooges (Moe, Larry, Curly) are fired from a song and dance show so they take a position of waiters but things don't go very smoothly. The first night out Healy is busy trying to be an owner while the Stooges get into one disaster after another. This short turned out to be the Three Stooges second at MGM and it's true the studio obviously didn't know what to do with them but I think this film actually manages to be pretty fun from start to finish. In the middle we get a musical number that is rather bland and boring but this only lasts for a few seconds thankfully. The rest of the film has the boys doing their act but of course they're still behind Healy. I think Healy actually turns in a pretty good and funny performance here. I really enjoyed the way he tried to be "smarter" than his stooges but he still managed to come across quite foolish in his own way. These early Healy shorts are never going to get much attention compared to the Columbia films but this one here is certainly one of the better ones. As far as the Stooges go, we don't see them in full glory here but I think they're entertaining enough in their own right and the final few minutes are a major plus with some very good laughs.

What I'm reviewing here is the second of the M-G-M shorts that starred Ted Healy and His Stooges (Moe, Larry, and Curly, natch), not to mention their female foil, Bonnie Bonnell-once again credited as "Bonny". About the latter, she was inconsistently uneven-performance wise-in the previous short Nertsery Rhymes but here is quite funny doing some of the trips and falls with the boys and later nicely begins a number that segues into three bartenders finishing it. Anyway, Healy, Howard, Fine, and Howard are fired from a vaudeville bill and manage to get hired as waiters at a nearby restaurant. If you know the Stooges, you can guess what happens but not before they do a little entertaining singing of their own. So on that note, Beer and Pretzels is very good as an early Stooge short and is thought of so highly that Moe considered it his favorite of his M-G-M efforts and Leonard Maltin made this the only of those shorts to be shown complete on his "The Lost Stooges" VHS tape from the early '90s. P.S. The theater manager who throws out the boys in the beginning is Edward Brophy who would later play the Stooges' restaurant boss in Swing Parade of 1946.

The boys really threw themselves around, tossing their bodies, all over the place, during these early MGM shorts, that they did with Healy. The copy I saw of Beer and Pretzels (1933), on YouTube, was a nicely restored version. The quality was great. The boys try to get jobs being waiters. This one is a little chaotic, with the dancing though. Bonnie Bonnell returns from the boys last film, Nertsery Rhymes (1933). In one dance scene, a dancer looks like she's having a seizure. It was weird. It was odd. The three tap dancer guys, who popped up, were slightly entertaining though. The director, Jack Cummings, lighted the sets strategically, so the dancers were in shadow, showing a silhouetted look. It was the second film in a five series run, produced by MGM studios.

There are signs of magic, to these early Stooge films. Previews of things to come. It is great seeing these again with a 21st century perspective. It is really interesting trying to analyze, what is going on in the boys' minds, as they act out these scenes, knowing what we know now, from a real-world perspective. It's an odd contrast, when some of the characters discuss the concept of being solo. It contrasts to what happens to Healy, Moe, Larry and Curly, the following year, when the gang split and the Three Stooges were born. Healy does do some of the gags in Beer and Pretzels (1933), that the Stooges made famous, later on, during their 25 year run, that followed. This one just felt a tad sloppy in its design, compared to their previous film.

6.1 (D+ MyGrade) = 6 IMDB.

Larry Fine, Moe Howard, Curly Howard, and Ted Healy are Heely-Heely-Heely & Heely. They are a bottom rung vaudevillian act getting thrown out of the theater. They are reduced to working as restaurant waiters. Of course, it goes horribly wrong.

Ted Healy and the Stooges are working out the premise. The Three Stooges are really the backup performers for Healy. This is a must for any Three Stooges fans. It's part of their origins story. The best is when the Stooges go crazy and Healy tries to direct the chaos. One can also see why Healy isn't necessary to the act. Without him, the chaos can be fully unleashed.