Nertsery Rhymes

MGM, ever thrifty, did something slightly unusual with this short. Mixed in between Ted Healy (as a top-hatted "daddy") and his Stooges (guess who?), not to mention a shapely fairy princess, we see two color segments recylced from earlier MGM films. One is the "Woman in the Shoe" number from "Lord Byron of Broadway," and another is a number entitled "A Girl, a Fan and a Fella," which is a number that was cut from either "The Hollywood Revue of 1929" or "March of Time." The first number fits in much better with the "bedtime story" theme, and features slick dancing, but the second number (which is actually shown first) has a quirky, Erte-like elegance about it that demands attention. MGM would do something similar later with "Roast Beef and Movies," with Curly Howard, but not to the same whacked charm-effect. Try it, and get an interesting idea of early Technicolor music.

The Three Stooges has always been some of the many actors that I have loved. I love just about every one of the shorts that they have made. I love all six of the Stooges (Curly, Shemp, Moe, Larry, Joe, and Curly Joe)! All of the shorts are hilarious and also star many other great actors and actresses which a lot of them was in many of the shorts! In My opinion The Three Stooges is some of the greatest actors ever and is the all time funniest comedy team!

One of the most hilarious and unique Three Stooges shorts is Nertsery Rhymes. In this short are Ted Healy and Bonnie Bonnell. There are many funny scenes here that I think most Three Stooges fans will love! In My opinion this one of the most different Three Stooges shorts. I recommend this one to all!

This is the film debut of Curly Howard. A very important moment in film history. At this time, they were known as "Howard, Fine and Howard". It's interesting seeing these old Ted Healy-Stooges shorts, because you can see what Moe did, after they split from Healy. When the boys went on their own, Moe took his character from these films and merged it with Healy's character, in essence becoming the leader of the trio. The two-color film process they used for Nertsery Rhymes (1933), does enhance it. It was part of a five film series, called the Colortone Musical Revues for MGM. This film is very vaudeville, with the singing, dancing, comedy and a lot of girls, in this pre-code era short subject. This includes, series regular, Bonnie Bonnell. She ended up being in all of their MGM shorts with Healy. These films were mostly geared towards adults in 1933.

I was impressed with the sets they had built on the stages, used in the film. They had impressive set designs for the dancing acts. The singing, jokes and over-all choreography, are pretty good for 1933. It was clear the boys didn't need Healy, because he seems almost pointless to the story, even though his character is the one, that guides the direction of the events, happening in Nertsery Rhymes (1933). He is Papa to the three kids, who resemble full grown men, who won't go to sleep without a bedtime story. Enter the singing, dancing, comedy and the girls, in dreamlike sequences, that go by on the screen. This is not a bad film for the debut of Curly Howard in the cinemas. I found the two-tone version on YouTube. It is an interesting piece of cinema art, that was the first of five at MGM studios. Its place in film history, makes it a strong film. It's hard to believe Nertsery Rhymes (1933) and the legend, known as the Three Stooges, is over 90 years old now.

7.1 (C MyGrade) = 7 IMDB.

What I'm reviewing is historical for this is the first M-G-M short film that featured Ted Healy and his Stooges (Moe, Larry, and Curly). It's also the first of many appearances with them of a now-forgotten female player named Bonnie Bonnell-credited as Bonny here-who at the time was dating Healy. Ted plays the "father" of the boys as Howard, Fine, and Howard keep asking for a bedtime story while Healy keeps trying to sneak out at night for a drink. Quite fascinating seeing this early version of this now-iconic act what with all the shenanigans and in two-strip Technicolor, to boot! Doesn't make a whole lot of sense especially when a couple of musical numbers from other pictures are shoehorned in. And this Bonnie lady seems to be from another planet when she performs. Still, I laughed plenty when I watched this-having seen the Stooges segments previously on Leonard Maltin's "The Lost Stooges" VHS tape-again on YouTube. So on that note, I recommend Nertsery Rhymes for any Stooges completists out there.

After seeing this film and looking at the reviews, it's obvious that this film is yet another case where rabid fans see EVERYTHING their favorite stars is in is pure cinema gold! Heck, giving ANY Three Stooge film a 10 is hard to imagine, but in the case of this abysmal film, it's a crime against common sense and IMDb fans! The reality is that this is a truly awful film in every possible way, though it is very important historically since it's the first Three Stooges film. Even most of the die-hard Stooges fans will hate this film as it's nothing like later films and just isn't funny.

Like all the early Stooge's films, their front man was Ted Healy--a rather obnoxious and abrasive vaudevillian who spent all his time smacking the crap out of the hapless Stooges. While in later Stooge films without Healy this violence was funny and comical, with Healy it tended to just be cruel and it was a great move by the boys to dump their rather vicious front man.

So why was it so bad? Well, it's very obvious that MGM didn't know what to do with the team and put very little effort into producing the film despite the fact that it was in the expensive Two-Color Technicolor process. This decision was less based on their commitment to the team and more because they had some existing two-color clips and wanted to combine them with the Stooge clips to save a few bucks. This was certainly NOT done in a seamless manner and the existing song and dance clips were simply dreadful--totally dull and unappealing. Plus, some of the clips and dialog have absolutely nothing to do with Nursery Rhymes! The end result was uninteresting and showed little to indicate that the team would one day make it big. Unfortunately for the studio, this trend continued until the team made the jump to Columbia and the rest is history.

See it only for historical purposes--don't say I didn't warn you!