Love Those Stooges (Trivia Challenge and Reference Guide)
YOU NAZTY SPY! (1940)
Film Pick of the Day
Sunday, September 13, 2026
Set in the country of Moronica, three men plot to overthrow their king and appoint a dictator. Their choice is a paperhanger named Moe Hailstone. With Curly as his Field Marshal and Larry as his Minister of Propaganda, the boys take control of the country. The citizens are unhappy and drive Hailstone out of power.
YOU NAZTY SPY! was the first American comedy film to be released, satirizing Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany. Chaplin's THE GREAT DICTATOR (1940) was in production first.
Scripted sequences from Jules White's files, either unfilmed or deleted from YOU NATZTY SPY!'s final release, are transcribed in The Three Stooges Journal # 112 (Winter 2004).
Costar Lorna Gray (Mattie Herring) was a guest of the 1995 Three Stooges Convention, and the 2004 Fan Club Meeting, both in Philadelphia. See The Three Stooges Journal # 75 (Fall 1995) and Journal # 110 (Summer 2004) for details.
A popular myth about NAZTY is that the Stooges were placed on Hitler's "hate/death" list. This is not true, the product of a 1992 tabloid story, and repeated with additional, fictional details in a 2002 book about the Stooges as well as a 2002 "National Examiner" article.
Details
Average Rating:   [ 8.77/10 ] 53 votes |
|
| Featuring | Moe, Larry and Curly |
|---|---|
| Release Date | Friday, January 19, 1940 |
| Studio | Columbia |
| Production Type | Short Subject |
| Duration | 18.1 min. |
