Sadly Over-hyped

Good movie but grossly overrated

A different way of telling a story

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I found this colorized version of "Pop Goes the Easel" on YouTube. While colorizing stuff was very popular back in the 90s, this one was colorized more recently and you can tell as the process is better than usual...though the skin tones could have been better and more realistic. Unfortunately, the short itself if pretty limp...and it seems odd that they'd colorize this one and not one of the better shorts by this trio.When the story begins, the boys are trying to do a good deed but are accused of being thieves. A cop chases them through the city and they end up taking refuge in an art school. There they pretend to be art students and all sorts of unfunny mayhem ensues. Ultimately, there is a clay fight that ends the picture.The problem with this one is that I never once found myself laughing. It seems that the team could have used better writers than they got in this one.

Having the Three Stooges running amok in an art studio where they can get their hands on all sorts of assorted paints and plaster, you would expect this to be one of their best short subjects. Instead, it starts out promisingly as they play starving hobos desperately seeking employment, but oddly stalls once they take refuge in the art studio. There is some relief at the end when they get involved in a clay-throwing free-for-all, but by then it's already missed the mark. Just average fare from the Stooges, circa 1935. (Trivia: the little girls who laugh while the Stooges jump through their hopscotch squares while fleeing from a cop are actually their kids). ** out of ****

This review is of the seventh of The Three Stooges' shorts they made for Columbia Pictures. In this one, they're three men looking for work with each individually having signs on them on certain corners saying something similar on them. After a while, they team up to take brooms from a nearby store and pretend to clean up hoping to impress the proprietor standing in front. Unfortunately, he thinks they're stealing his items and calls a cop. That cop gives chase after the boys and guess where they wind up? I'll stop there and just say there are plenty of funny gags and lines that mostly kept one laughing almost non-stop especially when Moe, Larry, and Curley (as his name was spelled at the time) dressed up in drag for the first time (with the latter doing a hilarious impersonation of Mae West) or when they did a clay fight that would later evolve into the pie fights of later years. I should also note that the little girls playing hopscotch as the boys are being chased are Moe's daughter Joan and Larry's daughter Phyllis. So on that note, Pop Goes the Easel comes highly recommended.

This short is important in stooge history for many reasons, not the least of which is that it's the first to establish the basic character personae that would follow them through their entire careers.It begins with the stooges as beggars, trying to find food or work on the street. This is the first time where we see them as common men, trying to make sense of the real world--a recurring theme in most of their movies. Chased by cops, they end up in an art school and soon create chaos with a clay-throwing fight, a precursor to the pie-throwing spectacles which became their trademark throughout their careers. We see the boys mixing with high society and dragging it down to their level, another common theme.This short also shows the beginning of how their characters evolved in relation to each other. We clearly see Moe and Curly (or Curley) as adversaries, with Larry as the man in the middle, for the first time. We also see Moe adding his familiar--and painful--slapstick reaction each time Larry or Curly makes a wisecrack. We hear Curly saying "I'm a victim of coicumstance!" and Moe's trademark windmill bonk on the top of the head for the first time. And it's the first time we hear Larry say "Sorry, Moe, it was an accident!", a line that was repeated throughout his entire career. It also lets us know that Moe is the team's leader--and the one to be afraid of.About the only thing that tips us off that this is still an early short is that Curly is not yet using his manic, high-pitched voice. And some of the direction is slow, as when the boys are smearing clay in each other's faces.Overall, it's a fun short and a good introduction to the 3 Stooges' brand of humor.