They Stooge to Conga
They Stooge to Conga
NR | 01 January 1943 (USA)
They Stooge to Conga Trailers

The Stooges are repairmen who get a job fixing the doorbell in large house which is the secret headquarters of some Nazi spies. They manage to ruin most of the house while working on the wiring and then subdue the spies and sink an enemy submarine by remote control.

Reviews
Actuakers

One of my all time favorites.

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KnotStronger

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

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Abegail Noëlle

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

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Dana

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

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Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)

"They Stooge to Conga" is an American 18-minute live action short film from 1943, so this one will have its 75th anniversary next year. It is a Three Stooges short film with Curly still on board. The director is Del Lord and he worked with the gang on many occasions. The two writers, including an Oscar nominee, did not. The year already tells us that this is from the days of WWII and the Stooges made several anti-Nazi propaganda films at that point. Here we have one of them that is especially anti-German. I personally must say that I find their non-political stuff better. This one wasn't a failure by any means, but it just went too much over the top at times I guess and you must be / must have been a big American patriot to see real filmmaking class in here. As for the comedy, it is the usual chaotic slapstick approach that made them so famous and I personally am not the greatest fan of said approach. Anyway, if you like their other stuff more than I do, then maybe you will end up liking this one here too. The rating implies that actually many people had a pretty great time watching. I myself feel it was too exaggerated and lacking focus from the story-telling perspective pretty much, too much for me to recommend it. One forced joke follows the next and most aren't too funny. I give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.

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Michael_Elliott

They Stooge to Conga (1943)*** (out of 4) Funny short from The Three Stooges has the men working as "fixer uppers" who can fix anything. A woman asks them to fix their doorbell and the boys accept the job not knowing that inside the house are Nazi spies.THEY STOOGE TO CONGA is a pretty good entry in the long running series as it contains some pretty good laughs and is also a good example of comedy during WWII. Obviously being shot during the war, there are many jokes here aimed at Germany, Japan and especially Hitler. The Hitler jokes are all pretty funny as we get all sorts of gags aimed at the salute to their leader. Another very funny moment happens when Moe pretends to be a portrait of Hitler and gives a salute back to the Germans.Fans of the Stooges are going to find quite a few jokes here that work including the rather long opening sequence where the boys destroy the house trying to "fix" the door bell. Overall this isn't the greatest episode in the series but it contains enough laughs to make it worth viewing.

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slymusic

Directed by Del Lord, "They Stooge to Conga" is arguably the most violent Three Stooges film ever made. Larry, Curly, and Moe are repairmen who wreck the doorbell wiring in someone's house and later bungle the neighborhood telephone wiring before they realize they've stumbled upon a Nazi hideout! Memorable sequences: This short contains the most graphic piece of Stooge violence involving Curly's climbing spike! (Almost equalling that is the circular wood blade applied to Curly's nose!) Curly and Larry pull Moe through a wall upon searching the house for a live wire. The chef, played by Dudley Dickerson, manages to steal the show with his few scenes; he gets shoved away by Moe, gets splatted with a bowl of batter, reacts to an exploding telephone, and gets a waffle iron stuck on his behind.Back in 1943, when "They Stooge to Conga" was first released, I'm sure that the excessively violent gags in this film caused theatergoers to cringe (today, those gags would be NOTHING). All I can say is this: It's a good thing all those props the Stooges used to whack each other were fake!

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lzf0

This short contains the most violent gag in Stooge history. The spike from Curly's shoe goes into Moe's eye! How could Del Lord and Hugh McCollum allow such a gag? This was more in the style of Jules White. I would like to note that these "violent beyond any doubt to be funny" gags are really few and far between in the Three Stooges canon. They did make 190 short subjects for Columbia! The other over the top violent gags I can think of consist of the following: the wire, nose, ear gag in "Pardon My Backfire", the bellows gag in "Corny Casanovas", the Christmas lights down Moe's throat gag in "He Cooked His Goose", and "Half Shot Shooters" almost in its entirety. It must be noted that it was not the Stooges shorts alone that engaged in cruel comic violence. These kind of gags can be found in other Columbia short comedies, especially those directed by Jules White. Lest we forget, Stan Laurel had a cruel, violent streak in his comedy as well.

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