Topic: The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze (1963)

[metaldams]

http://threestooges.net/filmography/episode/232
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057580/?ref_=nv_sr_1



      THE THREE STOOGES GO AROUND THE WORLD IN A DAZE is another good, if not great, feature.  I've never really had a bulk watching of these Derita films until now, so it's been an interesting experience, but one conclusion I've come to this week is this - THE THREE STOOGES MEET HERCULES is the best Derita film because it has the combination best story and gags that are unique, for the most part, to the Derita era.  THE THREE STOOGES IN ORBIT is fascinating in the sense the boys stretch out into more adult humor, lacking this in this week's film, but the story, with the miltaristic and nuclear themes, are a bit of a drag.  This week, we get a wonderful story, a play on AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, but some of the gags are remakes of Curly era routines.  I can't help but compare Derita, a serviceable comedian, to Curly Howard, a genius comedian, at this point.  The maharaja scene is done better in THREE LITTLE PIRATES and not only is Curly better than Derita, but Moe, who even more so carries the scene Curly or Derita, is noticeably more energetic in THREE LITTLE PIRATES as well. When doing original material, the aging and softening on the team is less apparent.

      The weasel scene is kind of similar, but there's one big exception here.  Derita, again, is good, but no Curly when going crazy to the weasel tune, however, Curtis Iaukea is a much better and intimidating opponent than say, Al Hill, and extra humor is added to the scene watching Derita tackle an opponent so much bigger than him.  Curly never really had that luxury, or the luxury of the budget and time either.  The actual fight itself is better here than in any Columbia short where this thing was attempted.  Humor wise, though, my biggest laugh came in the scene where the Stooges, and fowl (!) had utter milk sprayed all over them. 

      Story wise, this film is fine and moves along at a nice pace, but I will say it takes about fifteen minutes before the boys feel like more than supporting players.  Once those fifteen minutes pass, this feels like a Stooge film.  Overall an enjoyable film, just not all-time classic stuff.  However, for a fan who has seen the shorts 1,000 times over, I'm glad these features exist.  I may have watched this only two or three times before, and it's been years.

7/10

[Shemp_Diesel]

Another solid entry in the stooge filmography & it's kind of a shame--for me--that this wasn't there "official" last feature; as I find The Outlaws Is Coming a very tedious affair to get through. At any rate, Daze has a likeable male & female lead, some good stooging--particularly Derita's sumo rematch with Itchy Kitchy--and is overall a very pleasant 90 minute experience.

I also thought that Curly-Joe acquitted himself quite well--as far as the rehashing of old Curly Howard material goes--with Pop Goes the Weasel and the maharajah routines.

7 out of 10...

[Umbrella Sam]

AROUND THE WORLD IN A DAZE is, in my opinion, SNOW WHITE AND THE THREE STOOGES done right. They're both based off of classic 19th century literary tales (although AROUND THE WORLD IN A DAZE is technically a sequel) that incorporate the Stooges as a gimmick. However, whereas SNOW WHITE focuses too much on trying to be a good Snow White adaptation while almost ignoring the Stooges, AROUND THE WORLD IN A DAZE is better at combining both the Stooges and the story.

I'll start by saying my one real problem with the film, and that's the maharajah scene. It's not bad, but it feels like such a letdown compared to Curly's performance. Otherwise, I think a lot of the rest of the humor is pretty good, even if it is mostly reused. I like how they were able to incorporate the "Pop Goes The Weasel" gag from PUNCH DRUNKS as a recurring gag throughout the film, and I think Curly Joe does a good job with it. There are other funny moments as well; I like Moe's reaction to Curly Joe's "sharp crack," Curly Joe's reaction to the eggs falling on him, and other minor jokes like that that are spread throughout the film, and, in my opinion, usually work. Much like everyone else, I think Curly Joe is passable as a Stooge and can actually have some funny moments even if his personality isn't definitive.

The romantic leads are more interesting here than in any of the other features. Admittedly, that's not saying much, but much like Curly Joe himself, they're passable, and I was never annoyed when they were on screen. We also get an obligatory cameo from Emil Sitka and even see a few other former Stooges supporting players, such as Murray Alper and Phil Arnold (who gets a particularly funny moment when he asks for a dirty fight from the fighters).

It's not a perfect adaptation of the Jules Verne novel, but that's OK because it doesn't have to be, as the story is still pretty interesting on its own and the goal is to show off the Stooges. I expected a film where the Three Stooges have some crazy antics around the world, and that's exactly what I got. I really enjoyed this film a lot. Whereas most of the other Stooges features I saw simply for completionist's sake, this one and GOLD RAIDERS are films that I enjoy so much that I actually intend on watching them at least several more times in the future.

9 out of 10

[Curly Van Dyke]

I agree,this and Hercules are the best DeRita features.
Curly Joe gets in some of his best bits and I like the  Chinese "Stooges".
Too bad Emil Sitka only gets a cameo.
The Japanese wrestler is played by real pro King Curtis.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

No accounting for taste, I guess - this is my least favorite of the comeback Columbias.  It moves very slowly, and the two big feature bits, the sumo match and the Maha routine aren't a patch on the originals.  Derita is simply too old and fat for the wrestling match, although I'll admit that changing it to a sumo match was a good try at excusing Derita's  weight, which is huge here.  This is as fat as he got, I think...he's smaller in Outlaws.  In Punch Drunks, the crowd was back-projected, fairly convincingly; in this one it just looks like about 40 extras milling around. And I wasn't a fan of the Maha routine even in Three Little Pirates.  Once you've seen the routine in Time Out For Rhythm, with a healthy Curly, you don't need any other versions.  Derita plays this as if he doesn't get the jokes, and maybe he doesn't.  I think one of the good parts of the original Maha routine is that the double-talk isn't just double-talk, it's yiddish double talk, and Derita sounds about as yiddish as strawberry shortcake.  Perhaps the problem is that Norman Maurer was writer, director, producer, and the star's son-in-law.  No one on set was going to tell him if something sucked.  This was VERY plot-heavy, at the expense of stoogery, and all the jokes about the master's split-second timing weren't very funny.  Curly Joe bounces off a wall in fast motion, which was funny to me, and you can tell it was a good hard fall even without the undercranking.  They are old now, and are really starting to look it.
     One reference which we're all too young to get is when they're reduced to walking, and Larry makes a reference to " Kennedy-style hiking ".  JFK had a physical fitness program for all Americans, in fact it was his initiative that put phys. ed. in public schools, and another of his suggestions was that adults take a 50-mile hike on a regular basis.  That one didn't catch on, in fact was considered a joke, hence Larry's line was supposed to be a laugh.  The problem was, by the time the movie was released, JFK had been killed.  That killed THAT laugh.
     And at the finale, with Curly-Joe driving the paddy wagon, they drive in silence.  No cross-talk, no jokes.  Where was the writer?  Oh, yeah, he was directing, er, producing , er, nepotizing, yeah yeah, that's right.
     I realize I'm in the minority here, but I consider this the weakest of the Columbia comebacks.

[7stooges]

Here's a joke from the film that's usually left unmentioned - the Stooges lampshading the fact that they'd removed the 'eye-poke' from their act. Though it was probably done as more of a message to the kids. This is during the scene with the Chinese shrinks turned Stooges.

Moe: "Uh uh. That's number 21. We don't do that anymore, see? We do number 47 - like this: *slap*"

[metaldams]

Battling a migraine today, review should be coming Sunday night.  In the meantime, Curtis Iaukea, the sumo wrestler who plays Itchy Kitchy, is the first "actor" you'll see in this skit from my teenaged years in the mid 90's as a wrestling fan.  I never knew it was the same guy until now!  There is not a single film we've discussed that's had acting this bad, but for comedy, oh man!  Enjoy.   

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pretEZVIXv4

[Lefty]

Battling a migraine today, review should be coming Sunday night.  In the meantime, Curtis Iaukea, the sumo wrestler who plays Itchy Kitchy, is the first "actor" you'll see in this skit from my teenaged years in the mid 90's as a wrestling fan.  I never knew it was the same guy until now!  There is not a single film we've discussed that's had acting this bad, but for comedy, oh man!  Enjoy.   

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pretEZVIXv4

Hope you're over the migraine, Metaladams.  Now that video showed three stooges (four including the Hulkster).  For those who don't recognize that big-haired goof near the end, that is Paul "Big Slow" Wight, who seems to have a match scheduled against Shlemiel O'Neal at WrestleMania this year. 

And as for "King" Curtis Iaukea, he and Baron Mikel Scicluna held the WWWF tag team championship from 2/1/72 through 5/22/72, managed by Captain Lou Albano (before he was a "captain").  I still remember Iaukea's famous quote back then -- "I'm not as stupid as I look."  He couldn't be -- or could he?

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

This confirms for me how dull this movie is, that the big topic discussed on this thread turns out to be pro wrestling.  I'm a pro wrestling fan too, but if Itchy-Kitchy is the big attraction of your movie, your movie is in trouble.  To be fair, I thought that the finale of the match, where the ring collapses, was pretty good, but when the sequences of Larry getting beat on by a fat lady ( which I also admit were pretty good, even if they were throwaway shots ), are the funniest bits of the whole sequence, as opposed to the actual wrestling match, you've got a problem, and that problem is poor 52-year-old obese Joe Derita trying to recreate young Curly.  Don't think for a minute that CJ is phoning it in, either, he's working hard, but he's not 32-year-old Curly Howard, which he was the first to admit - he's just too damn old.  Please don't misunderstand me here:  I like Derita as Curly Joe, as I've said repeatedly over the years, I thought he always did a consistently good job with the material he was given, which very often was very skimpy, since the producer/director was the father-in-law of the lead comic, which meant that in a Maurer-Moe Howard-oriented production Derita was always going to be second or third banana.  Here they just told him he was going to re-do Punch Drunks, so what's he going to do?  He said O K .  I'll admit that back in 1964, I was O K with it, as were all my 11-year old pals, because, by god, they're the Three Stooges, and even though these Maha/ wrestling remakes aren't as good as the originals, which I and all my buddies knew, we loved them and knew they were still alive, and we stuck with 'em.  Of course,fifty-three years later, I'm the only imbecile still sticking.

[Larrys#1]

This movie has probably the best storyline out of the five Derita flicks and had the potential of being a very good film. But it fails because, like the other films, Derita gives a very lackluster performance. It's quite obvious when you compare his pop goes to weasel and Maharaja bits to the way Curly did them. Even in the Shemp episodes that were remakes of the Curly's, I didn't care for the way Shemp performed. But it's not because he was bad; he was still funny. I just didn't care for his style of the routines compared to Curly's. In here, Derita lacks any sort of comedy style. He delivers his lines, collects his paycheck and goes home. And it is very evident here too. Yes, it's very hard to match Curly's comedy and maybe I'm being unfair by comparing the two (tho it's hard not to when you are recycling routines), but come on, Derita! I think you can do better than that...

4/10

[Freddie Sanborn]

As a new Stooge in front of a live audience, DeRita could kill (Steve Allen, Ed Sullivan). For whatever reason he played it safe when the movie cameras were rolling. “Safe” Stooges aren’t funny.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

The reason was that the movie scripts gave him nothing good to do.  They weren't ad-libbing in the films, everything was scripted to the nth degree.  It was too expensive to do otherwise.  When DeRita had good material, like on those TV shows you mention, he was very good.  The movie scripts were not as good, so at times he was lost, you might even say buried.

[Larrys#1]

As a new Stooge in front of a live audience, DeRita could kill (Steve Allen, Ed Sullivan). For whatever reason he played it safe when the movie cameras were rolling. “Safe” Stooges aren’t funny.

Agreed. Here's a good example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSdtBNWaPas
I know I had this sketch on one of my DVDs or a DVD I had but maybe got rid?

[Larrys#1]

I just came across this sketch on youtube that I've never seen before. Man, does DeRita do a killer job in this video! In fact, all three of them perform very well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8px6bPCii4w&t

There was something in these 5 DeRita films that made all three of them tone down their performances. I know they were told to tone down the violence, but their energy level was significantly lower in the 5 films compared to that sketch. I bet if DeRita had the opportunity to work with Moe & Larry during their shorts era, he would've been great!

[Tony Bensley]

The reason was that the movie scripts gave him nothing good to do.  They weren't ad-libbing in the films, everything was scripted to the nth degree.  It was too expensive to do otherwise.  When DeRita had good material, like on those TV shows you mention, he was very good.  The movie scripts were not as good, so at times he was lost, you might even say buried.

That's an excellent observation!  When it came to the later Stooges feature films, DeRita was basically somewhat in the same boat as pre mid forties Larry Fine, except perhaps even more so!

CHEERS!

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Exactly.

[Tony Bensley]

No accounting for taste, I guess - this is my least favorite of the comeback Columbias.  It moves very slowly, and the two big feature bits, the sumo match and the Maha routine aren't a patch on the originals.  Derita is simply too old and fat for the wrestling match, although I'll admit that changing it to a sumo match was a good try at excusing Derita's  weight, which is huge here.  This is as fat as he got, I think...he's smaller in Outlaws.  In Punch Drunks, the crowd was back-projected, fairly convincingly; in this one it just looks like about 40 extras milling around. And I wasn't a fan of the Maha routine even in Three Little Pirates.  Once you've seen the routine in Time Out For Rhythm, with a healthy Curly, you don't need any other versions.  Derita plays this as if he doesn't get the jokes, and maybe he doesn't.  I think one of the good parts of the original Maha routine is that the double-talk isn't just double-talk, it's yiddish double talk, and Derita sounds about as yiddish as strawberry shortcake.  Perhaps the problem is that Norman Maurer was writer, director, producer, and the star's son-in-law.  No one on set was going to tell him if something sucked.  This was VERY plot-heavy, at the expense of stoogery, and all the jokes about the master's split-second timing weren't very funny.  Curly Joe bounces off a wall in fast motion, which was funny to me, and you can tell it was a good hard fall even without the undercranking.  They are old now, and are really starting to look it.
     One reference which we're all too young to get is when they're reduced to walking, and Larry makes a reference to " Kennedy-style hiking ".  JFK had a physical fitness program for all Americans, in fact it was his initiative that put phys. ed. in public schools, and another of his suggestions was that adults take a 50-mile hike on a regular basis.  That one didn't catch on, in fact was considered a joke, hence Larry's line was supposed to be a laugh.  The problem was, by the time the movie was released, JFK had been killed.  That killed THAT laugh.
     And at the finale, with Curly-Joe driving the paddy wagon, they drive in silence.  No cross-talk, no jokes.  Where was the writer?  Oh, yeah, he was directing, er, producing , er, nepotizing, yeah yeah, that's right.
     I realize I'm in the minority here, but I consider this the weakest of the Columbia comebacks.

Regarding the Kennedy joke, according to IMDB and Wikipedia, "Daze" was released August 21, 1963, a full three months before JFK's assassination.

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0057580/?ref=m_nv_sr_1

CHEERS!

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Well, yes, that joke would never had been released AFTER the assassination.  After Nov. 22, 1963, though, that joke was never again funny.  The joke had a very short life.

[Tony Bensley]

Well, yes, that joke would never had been released AFTER the assassination.  After Nov. 22, 1963, though, that joke was never again funny.  The joke had a very short life.

I think that whether that Kennedy joke might still be considered funny is a your mileage may vary proposition, although I tend to agree with you that it likely would have been excised had the film been released right after the Kennedy Assassination.

CHEERS! 

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

I can't see anyone finding this joke funny after the assassination unless they had a truly ghoulish sense of humor.  Before the murder, it WAS a moderately funny line, in a topical way, as I mention above.  If you find someone now who laughs at that joke, please don't introduce me.

[Tony Bensley]

I can't see anyone finding this joke funny after the assassination unless they had a truly ghoulish sense of humor.  Before the murder, it WAS a moderately funny line, in a topical way, as I mention above.  If you find someone now who laughs at that joke, please don't introduce me.

To laugh at it in the immediate wake of the assassination, I would agree, but time can alter perspectives. Otherwise, all JFK related jokes not pertaining to the assassination itself (Which would indeed, be downright ghoulish!) would be considered out of bounds,  which I'd consider rather extreme.  Just my opinion, though!

All this discussion over a brief moderately funny joke, at best, but so it goes!

CHEERS! 

[HomokHarcos]

What actually surprised me when I watched this movie was that it mocked the Chinese Communist Party. When the Stooges arrive in China, they turn the local Chinese inhabitants into Stooge fans, and they vandalize a poster of Mao! I can't imagine a major Hollywood studio even considering putting something like that in a movie today.

[Freddie Sanborn]

Well, it was the Cold War.

What actually surprised me when I watched this movie was that it mocked the Chinese Communist Party. When the Stooges arrive in China, they turn the local Chinese inhabitants into Stooge fans, and they vandalize a poster of Mao! I can't imagine a major Hollywood studio even considering putting something like that in a movie today.

[Dr. Mabuse]

Boxoffice (November 11, 1963)