Three Stooges Feature in the Works

[Winslow Leach]

MGM and the Farrelley brothers are finally slapping together their high-profile cast for "The Three Stooges," a comedy project the filmmakers have been developing for years. Sean Penn is set to play Larry, and Jim Carrey is in negotiations to play Curly. Benicio del Toro is a rumored possibility for the brothers' taciturn leader, Moe.

The studio is looking to start production in the fall for a 2010 release slot.

The film is not a biopic but a fictional treatment that maintains the Stooges' gleeful slap schtick updated for a modern milieu.

Included in the story line is an opening that shows the Stooges as kids in an orphanage, a device that will require some "Benjamin Button"-style visual trickery to place the adult actors' heads on child actors' bodies.

--from The Independent Film Guide

[Ilikemuppets]

I just heard about this. I hope it's good!

[Drtooth]

I dunno how this is gonna work. Really... and they always seem to give Shemp the shaft in these things. Jim Carrey would probably make a better Shemp than a Curley, though I can totally see that.

[Traveling Matt]

I hope Jim Carrey can pull everything off (the mannerisms, the vocals, the look). It'll be quite tough. Michael Chiklis did a pretty good job in the last biopic.

If any Stooges fans are unaware, Sony has been releasing all their shorts in chronological order on 2-disc DVD sets. The restorations are wonderful. They've just issued Volume Five, which contains the final Curly films and the first Shemps. Highly recommended.

[Winslow Leach]

I dunno how this is gonna work. Really... and they always seem to give Shemp the shaft in these things. Jim Carrey would probably make a better Shemp than a Curley, though I can totally see that.

I hear ya. I love all the Stooges, but Shemp is probably my favorite. Yeah, he's still somewhat underrated, not only in film, but also in the various histories of the Stooges, where he usually merits one chapter or something. In the made-for-TV film he was in what, one scene?

Shemp was the original third stooge, with Moe and Larry. He left the act in the early 1930s, due mostly to the way he (and the other two) were treated by Ted Healy, the founder of the act. Healy would pull in thousands of dollars a night, and give the team something like $100 each. Shemp also disliked Healy as a person, who could be as rough offstage as he was on. So he left the act, suggesting he be replaced by younger brother Jerome (Curly).

Shemp probably had the longest film career out of all the Stooges; he appeared in numerous short subjects, and was a frequent face in comedies featuring Abbott & Costello, W.C. Fields, and other top acts of the day.

When Curly suffered an on-set stroke in 1946, Shemp stepped into his old role as third stooge, for what was meant to be temporary. Sadly, Curly never fully recovered (although he had a cameo in an early Shemp short, "Hold That Lion"), and passed away in 1952.

Shemp, however, never missed a beat; as soon as he was out of the gate, he performed as if he never left the act. In fact, the Shemp shorts are considered even more violent and full of slapstick than the Curly years.

[Oscarfan]

One happy Stooges fan here!

[Drtooth]

I hear ya. I love all the Stooges, but Shemp is probably my favorite. Yeah, he's still somewhat underrated, not only in film, but also in the various histories of the Stooges, where he usually merits one chapter or something. In the made-for-TV film he was in what, one scene?

Well, to tell you the truth, Curly is my favorite. I'm just sick'a thin actors in fat suit movies.... This one is understandable, though. But Shemp ones are some of my second favorites... only ones I hated were the Joe Besser ones. And you can tell Moe and Lerry didn't like doing them at all. Especially that one that remade a Curly short... you know, where Moe is stressed out and they have to go to a cabin in the woods. Every time I watch the Besser ones, I just feel that it's disconnected... the 2 stooges plus one more guy who acts like them, but doesn't interact that much.

[Winslow Leach]

Well, to tell you the truth, Curly is my favorite. I'm just sick'a thin actors in fat suit movies.... This one is understandable, though. But Shemp ones are some of my second favorites... only ones I hated were the Joe Besser ones. And you can tell Moe and Lerry didn't like doing them at all. Especially that one that remade a Curly short... you know, where Moe is stressed out and they have to go to a cabin in the woods. Every time I watch the Besser ones, I just feel that it's disconnected... the 2 stooges plus one more guy who acts like them, but doesn't interact that much.

While I don't hate the Besser shorts, I agree they are the team's weakest; Besser was a good comic, but didn't belong with the Stooges; in fact, he had it written in his contract that he couldn't be physically abused, so Larry ended up taking the punishment for *two* Stooges in most cases.

Actually, several Curly shorts were remade with Besser, including "Hoi Polloi" (in which a professor tries turning the Stooges into gentlemen); this was already remade as "Half Wits' Holiday," (Curly suffered his stroke midway through filming, and it ended up being his last).

Several Shemp films were remade/recycled during his lifetime; Columbia simply used existing footage, shot a few minutes of new linking material, came up with a new title, and voila! "New" film. When Shemp died in 1955, Columbia continued with this practice, using a stand-in whose face was never seen as Shemp. This lasted for a handful of remade shorts until a new Stooge (Besser) could be found.

[Drtooth]

You know... they clearly wanna celeb this film up... but you know who plays a good Larry? Billy West (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_2voybydlU)

[Ilikemuppets]

You know... they clearly wanna celeb this film up... but you know who plays a good Larry? Billy West (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_2voybydlU)Whoa! You called it dead on and I couldn't agree more.