Last Feature Roundup For The Stooges


Larry, Moe, and Joe Out West for The Outlaws Is Coming! (1965)

Fellow fifth graders were surprisingly indifferent to this --- in fact, I don't think any of us caught the Liberty's three-day run. I had borne brunt of earlier Stooge features from Columbia, having been dragged to them by cousins or neighbors, but '65 was a new day, and I considered myself inoculated from further Stooging. This recent view was therefore my first, and hanged if the thing didn't play better than grim anticipation over interceding half-century. The boys had spoofed westerns before, primarily in shorts, though there was a teaming with George O'Brien at feature length. Outlaws at times has an almost hipster spin on genre clichés, future Laugh-In's Henry Gibson applying layers of irony to his Indian support part. The thing looks hardly more lavish than a late Stooge short; kids in theatres must have thought they were looking at a great big TV set for economies observed, but the trio give all, and I'm impressed as ever by their outlasting virtually all Gold Age acts that came before. Indeed, the Stooges might have performed to infinity but for Larry's stroke. To sum up, I didn't laugh at The Outlaws Is Coming!, but did respect it, and could spank myself for passing in 1965. Columbia got respectable returns for minimal outlay: $598K in domestic rentals, and $240K foreign. The Sony Channel's HD displays map of Moe's wrinkles to splendorous effect.

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