Three Missing Links

Larry, Curly, and Moe are cleaning a movie studio office. Of course, they do it poorly. It just so happens that the studio is looking for a gorilla opposite movie star Mirabel Mirabel in an African adventure. The boys claim to be actors and Curly is an animal impersonator. They are hired on the spot. In the jungles of Africa, the boys encounter a real medicine man. Curly buys some love candy to woo Mirabel. Then comes a real lion and a real gorilla.

A lion licking those feet is probably the most impressive stunt in the whole short. That's worth extra for the stuntmen. The slapstick is generally good. The witch doctor is awkward for the modern audience. The gorilla suit does block Curly's great facial expressions. Maybe if he loses the gorilla head, it would have him running around looking for the head and avoiding the real gorilla. Overall, there is good Stooges work here.

As far as the Three Stooges go, this one is a stand alone classic! All family members will enjoy this one. I highly recommend this Three Stooges short.

Absolute bananas, thanks to producer Jules White, who directed this mini classic and many more to come for good reason. White, like his brother Jack, wrote the book on Stooge comedy.

A Hollywood setting, Moe, Larry and Curly are janitors(?) at a movie studio called, Super Terrific Productions. Producer B. O. Botswaddle (James C. Morton, ofcourse) needs an actor to play a gorilla and Curly is chosen -- because he's just plain NUTS. Botswaddle claims he looks like the missing link? No arguement there. The guys head to Africa to film, "Jilted in the Jungle"(?) and its insane.

Best gag is Curly dressed as an ape confronting Naba, another gorilla (played by stuntman Ray "Crash" Corrigan) and the tribal witch doctor, Dr. Ba Loni Sulami (real life boxer John Lester Johnson). The doc gives him a "love portion" pill which is something like Viagra! Amazing

Lots of funny names; character actor Monte Collins plays Herbert Herrybone and Jane Hamilton plays Mirabel Mirabel. Searle Kramer's script is nuts, and enough material to have made this into a film. The Stooge possibilities were endless. Kramer later branched into tv and wrote for the FLYING NUN and GREEN ACRES.

Memorable line; "We're terrific! We're colossal! We're even mediocre!"

Always on remastered Columbia dvd, generally by decades, 30s, 40s and 50s episodes. Thanks much to METV for running these oldies Saturdays.

It's possible that Harry Cohn over at Columbia got wind of the fact that Hal Roach was planning to do an epic about prehistoric times that became One Million BC. So who better to do a spoof on that for a whole lot less money than his favorite comics, The Three Stooges.

After causing the usual amount of chaos and mayhem as janitors at a movie studio, Moe, Larry, and Curly are cast as two prehistoric men and a gorilla. Guess who has the gorilla look about him?

But that's a key part because as the gorilla you get to make love to Jane Hamilton, nicely and scantily clad in animal skins as befits a prehistoric sexpot.

For realism's sake they decide to shoot the thing in the real jungle as real as Hollywood back lot jungles got in those days. Of course when a real gorilla resents the invasion of his turf, the fun really starts.

A lot of the same gags, compacted into Three Missing Links can be found in the later Abbott&Costello feature film, Africa Screams. Best of course is seeing a real battle of wits between Curly and the gorilla.

I'd say they were evenly matched.

Three Missing Links (1938)

*** (out of 4)

The Three Stooges are working as janitors at a movie studio when they're fired but then re-hired to go to Africa where they're filming a jungle movie. In the film Curly is to play a gorilla but sure enough when they start filming a real gorilla shows up on the set. It doesn't appear that this Stooge short has a very good reputation and while it does start off a little slow, things really pick up during the final ten-minutes. The stuff in the office at the start of the film is pretty much "been there, done that" because we get the typical antics like water being slung around and of course each men gets knocked upside the head a time or two. The second half is when things really take off and even though these jokes aren't too original they're still hilarious at times. The highlight for me has the be the scene where the boys are asleep in their tent with their feet sticking out. A lion comes up and begins licking the, tickling the boys but they think it's one another doing the job. More laughs are to follow when the gorilla enters the picture and no one can tell which one is real and which one is Curly. The final ten-minutes had me laughing extremely hard and this is clearly one people should enjoy.