Enjoying a career renaissance in 1959 when their old Columbia two-reelers were released to television, The Three Stooges capitalized on their comeback with an enjoyable low-budget feature film, Have Rocket, Will Travel (1959). Response to this modest mirthmaker was so positive that Columbia decided to rush a second Stooges feature into production-without rehiring the Stooges! Stop! Look! And Laugh! is a pastiche of scenes lifted from the best Stooges shorts of the 1930s and 1940s, all featuring the immortal Curly Howard as ...
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Enjoying a career renaissance in 1959 when their old Columbia two-reelers were released to television, The Three Stooges capitalized on their comeback with an enjoyable low-budget feature film, Have Rocket, Will Travel (1959). Response to this modest mirthmaker was so positive that Columbia decided to rush a second Stooges feature into production-without rehiring the Stooges! Stop! Look! And Laugh! is a pastiche of scenes lifted from the best Stooges shorts of the 1930s and 1940s, all featuring the immortal Curly Howard as the third Stooge. To provide a semblance of continuity, ventriloquist Paul Winchell and his dummies Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smif carry the film's "plot", which consists of Winchell attempting to get through the day despite constant interference by the Stooges. Also featured in two irrelevant sequences are the Marquis Chimps, who went on to star in their own TV series for Columbia's Screen Gems division, The Hathaways (1961). Veteran Stooge director Jules White produced, directed and cowrote the new footage. Among the vintage Three Stooges comedies represented via stock footage are Men in Black (1934), Goofs and Saddles (1937), Violent is the Word for Curly (1938), Calling All Curs (1939), Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise (1939), A-Plumbing We Will Go (1940), How High Is Up? (1940), Sock-a-Bye Baby (1942), Higher Than a Kite (1943), Micro Phonies (1945) and Half-Wits Holiday (1947). Stop! Look! And Laugh! was coproduced by the Three Stooges' agent Harry Romm, who quickly became their ex-agent when Moe Howard sued for unauthorized reproduction of the Stooges' likenesses. Hal Erickson, Rovi
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