For me (and, apparently, about 1,800 others), the Thanksgiving holiday weekend in the past couple of years has come to mean looking forward to turkey, family, and The Three Stooges.
And this year the Stooges were in 3D!
OK, I know this calls for a little explanation: Last year my nephew David invited me to join he and his friend Derek at the Alex Film Society’s 11th annual Three Stooges Festival in Glendale at the historic Alex Theater. It was such a hoot to see a couple hours of black-and-white Stooges short subjects from the 1930s – 1950s presented as they were originally intended, through a film projector in a theater filled with an appreciative audience laughing hysterically at Moe poking the eyes of Larry, as Curly was frantically hopping while slapping his hands down his face.
So, we went again last Saturday, Nov. 28, and they announced we were part of one of their biggest crowds in 12 years, more than 900 in the huge 1,300 seat theater for the 2 p.m. matinee — main floor and balcony, and more than 1,800 overall including the evening program.
Of most interest to me this year was the lure of my first experience of seeing the Stooges’ antics in 3D. I had only recently learned that the Stooges – during their second phase with Shemp (which we were told during a special big-screen bonus feature of Moe Howard being interviewed on “The Mike Douglas Show” in the 1970s that Shemp book-ended the Curly years) had filmed two short subjects in 3D during the first mainstream Hollywood 3D craze of the 1950s called “Spooks!” and “Pardon My Backfire,” both in 1953.
So, to have a chance to see them on the big screen was very enticing.
Sadly, it was a disappointment, though I did get to experience firsthand the same frustration and irritation reported by many seated in those 1950s audiences: ineffective 3D and a headache. The red lens over the right eye and blue (cyan) lens over the left eye (which we were told by the festival was correct even though the glasses indicated the opposite) made the screen so dark that it rendered vision in the right eye almost completely blind. Maybe the two images were misaligned? Many people, including my nephew David, kept taking their glasses off because they were getting nauseous. (Yes, we tried flipping them over with no improvement.) With the exception of a couple of props being poked at the camera, there was only a barely perceivable sense of depth. Also, it wasn’t one of the best Stooges shorts.
Adding to the disappointment, we were informed before the 3D short was shown that it was not being projected on film as originally intended due to some mismatching technology relating to the original polarized process, so it was instead being projected from a DVD that uses the anaglyph 3D process.
The good news is that it turns out Sony Pictures Home Entertainment recently released a DVD with both 3D shorts on Nov. 10 which allow the viewer to see the shorts in 3D at home with two sets of glasses that come with the DVD, which is actually a much more pleasure-able experience than the one in the theater.
The two-disc DVD set with 6 1/2-hours of programming is called “The Three Stooges Collection Volume 7 – 1952-1954” ($24.96) and also includes 20 other digitally remastered shorts presented as they were projected in the theaters; some in widescreen for the first time since their original release.
While the 3D is far better here on the DVD than on the big screen at the festival, sadly the experience is once again disappointing because the black-and-white picture quality is inexplicably significantly inferior to the 2D version on the same disc. It looks very grainy or perhaps even pixelated. I am told by someone very involved with the process that the 3D conversion and transfer was designed for high-def Blu-ray, so perhaps this DVD version has suffered from some sort of down-rez process.
Interestingly, by far the highest-quality display of a Stooges 3D short I have found so far is this teaser clip below for “Pardon my Backfire” that I discovered at Sony’s website in promotion of the DVD. The 3D is decent and the black-and-white image is very crisp. You can get a taste of it yourself right now. Find a pair of those cheesy cardboard 3D glasses you have lying around somewhere or grab a pair from a Blu-ray Disc or DVD with 3D glasses (the TrioScopics glasses with red/magenta lens on the right side and green lens on the left work best — they can be found in this Stooges DVD or “Coraline,” “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” “My Bloody Valentine 3D,” and in “Monsters” Vs. Aliens” for the bonus 3D short “Bob’s Big Break”; if all you have are the glasses with a blue lens on the right and the red lens on the left — “Friday the 13th Part 3 – 3D” and “The Polar Express” — you can get a little of the effect if you turn them around so the red lens is over your right eye.)
Not only will you notice a discernible sense of depth, this clip is instantly funnier than “Spooks!,” with Larry inadvertently pounding Moe in the face repeatedly with the back of his elbow and Moe retaliating by sanding Larry’s forehead as skin shavings cascade to the floor like sawdust. Now that’s brilliant comedy we can all be thankful for!
That, and modern 3D cinema technology that is vastly superior to that of the Stooges era, and the coming-soon attraction of far superior home 3D via Blu-ray.