Secret Philadelphia (A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful and Obscure)
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Moe Howard & The 3 Stooges
The Pictorial Biography of the Wildest Trio in the History of American Entertainment
| Author: | Moe Howard |
|---|---|
| Hardback: | 208 pages |
| Publisher: | Citadel Press (1977) |
| Avg. Rating: |   [8.20/10] |
| In Print? | No |
An important book in the Stooges' bibliography that tells an overall, fascinating story from the head Stooge's POV. But readers should be aware that 40+ years of subsequent research have revealed that Moe's recollections were prone to errors in the details as well as the occasional exaggeration. Some examples -- We now know that Larry Fine joined Healy's act in March 1928, not 1925 as Moe recalled; Shemp did not leave Healy's act in 1932 to join the "Joe Palooka" cast at Vitaphone (a film series that did not exist until 1936); Moe was not present when Healy and Shemp approached Larry to join the act in 1928; Moe did not throw the pies in the shorts, that was done by prop man Ray Hunt.
In the 2013 reissue edition "I Stooged to Conquer," his daughter Joan Maurer wrote a new Foreword and briefly addressed the issue of Moe's memory. This does not detract from the importance of this book, but some passages do require the proverbial "grain of salt."
From the book jacket of the 1st hardcover printing, 1977...
"In the '30s and '40s one of the most popular film comedy teams in show business was the trio variously known as "Larry, Curly and Moe," "Howard, Fine and Howard" and, more universally, "The Three Stooges." Their slapstick comedy brought howls of laughter to audiences all over the world. And their popularity, which zoomed and slipped and then zoomed again over four decades, is today undergoing a startling resurgence not only on television but in college screenings all over the country.
This book tells the story of The Three Stooges as remembered by Moe Howard, the chief stooge and mentor of the trio as long as it existed. As boss of the team, with his bowl-shaped haircut and manic rages, Moe was a one-man laugh factory. Here he remembers his more than half-century in show business... his youth as a general all-around actor in a riverboat stock company; his days in vaudeville, where he experimented with routines ranging from blackface to blackouts; and his fortuitous meeting with Ted Healy, who inspired him to enlist his brother Shemp and the wild-haired Larry Fine, in the trio which became The Three Stooges.
The Stooges did not invent slapstick but they certainly established such trademarks of American humor as cream pies in the face, pratfalls on banana peels, and the fast slap across two faces.
It is all here in Moe Howard's reminiscences... a glance backward at vaudeville, musical comedy, feature films and, most important, the myriad of short movies made for Columbia Pictures. The Stooges starred in more than 70 short films. In many of them inventiveness was stretched to the utmost, since often the studio did not bother to furnish a plot but merely allowed the imagination of the stars to develop the pratfalls and mayhem constituting the action.
For this book Mr. Howard's family made available family albums containing thousands of photographs. From this wealth of material we have selected hundreds of illustrations --- pictures showing the Stooges in action in every phase of their career. Over the decades Moe Howard and Larry Fine continued with the act, though the middle stooge role was assumed at various times by Shemp and Curly Howard, Joe Besser and Joe DeRita.
Moe Howard & The 3 Stooges revives a concept that has somehow almost become lost in recent years: the purpose of comedy is to make people laugh."
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