The FReeper Foxhole Remembers When Hollywood Went to War (1942-1945) - Apr. 15th, 2003

E Online ^ | April 2, 2003 | Tom Johnson

[apackof2]

Hero, a military working dog hero!

Good dog!

[apackof2]

Don't forget these guys!

Moe, Larry and Curly:

Premature Anti-Fascists

The Stooges took on Hitler before most Americans had a clue
By Richard von Busack

AS A SPECIALIST IN the study of propaganda, the University of Dayton's Don Morlan is especially fond of the film that Moe, Larry and director Jules White all considered their best, the 1940 short "You Nazty Spy." "That was a classic," says Morlan. "The comedy came out satirizing Nazis two years before Pearl Harbor, when America was still trying to stay neutral." In 1941, isolationist senators, including Montana's Burton Wheeler, were investigating suspected anti-Nazi propaganda by Hollywood. The committee had gone as far as making a list of films with an anti-Nazi bent. (These hearings are little known, because they were canceled on the morning of Monday, Dec. 8, 1941, and the findings were never reported.)

In "You Nazty Spy," Moe plays a wallpaper-hanger recruited by the leading businessmen of Moronika to be their puppet dictator. The kingpin Stooge in Hitler drag is uncannily like Adolf; the two wrathful little guys merge into one. Curly's Goering is also startlingly like the real model, and Larry, besashed and beribboned, has a diplomat's own spinelessness.

Morlan is quick to ascribethe quality of "You Nazty Spy" to Chaplin's The Great Dictator--released nine months later. Still, "You Nazty Spy" was released in January 1940, months before the German invasion of France and the anti-Nazi turn in American public opinion. White and Howard's short film missed the radar of the isolationists in the U.S. Senate but not, apparently, through any lack of attention by the U.S. public. According to Morlan, "You Nazty Spy" was a popular short for the Stooges; the film even played in some first-run theaters that usually excluded the trio.

The Three Stooges not only got there before anyone else in American comedy, they pegged their man just as well as Chaplin did, perhaps better. Moe understood Hitler's rage and seediness. "You Nazty Spy" stresses how the Führer had got his job through the support of Germany's business class. In The Great Dictator, Chaplin thought that, with sweet reason, Hitler could be convinced to do good. Moe Howard may have been a more limited man, but he was perhaps better in touch with human nature. In one scene, Moe reveals through Hitler his own un-Christian desires by having his dictator order up some lions, planning to throw his country's dissidents to them. But like Hitler and unlike Chaplin's Adnoid Hynkel, Moe's Hailstone ends up undone by farce. The last shot before the fade-out is a sharp political cartoon image: a burping lion wearing the Reichsführer's hat. [ Metro | Metroactive Central | Archives ]

[SAMWolf]

Thanks apackof2, Some of the best Stooge flics made fun of the Nazi's. Moe made a perfect Hitler.

Moe(as Hitler): "I command you to blow out your brains"
Nazi Officer: "But mein Fuhrer, Ve are Nazi's Ve haf no brains"

[larryjohnson]

I am a child of WWII,movies and actors of that era. I am also of early tv and rock and roll. Watching the Ernie Kovacs show. He is quoted: TV, a medium. Called such because it is neither rare nor well done.

[SAMWolf]

Sounds like we share some of the same ""good old days" memories.

[GailA]

I grew up watching Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Lawrence Welk, Red Skelton, John Wayne, Roy Rodgers, Dale Evans, Lone Ranger, and a host of other "real" fine pro-America actors/actresses. Some where along the line holywierd was taken over by the likes of saranwrap, bs, and crew.

At Christmas I was able to purchase a 5 box set of DVD's of Red Skelton shows at Wal-Mart. I noticed the other day that in the $5.88 bin they had Roy Rodger DVD's out. Might be a good time to get a few for our grandson.

[SAMWolf]

LOL Your dating yourself GailA. I watched all those same shows. Red Skelton was the greatest along with Gleason great humor and never had to use sex or gutter language.

[GailA]

I'll be 55 in August. Just a spring chicken...except when I'm down sick. Still working off that abscessed tooth..I now have a strained jaw ligament to contend with due to the prolonged attempt to numb the sucker to pull it.

I LOVE Gleason, even his later stuff...his hick sheriff was a hoot with Burt Reynolds. Buford T. Justice.

[PhilDragoo]

[PhilDragoo]

A couple of observations.

Dennis Miller referred to Tim Robbins saying discount any liberal males lacking secondary sexual characteristics.

George Clooney's disgusting attacks on Charlton Heston are perfectly in type with Abu Abbas' cold-blooded shooting of the elderly invalid Jewish man in the wheelchair on the Achille Lauro.

In each case it was required of the debased perp's overcompensation that he go over the top: for Abbas, the pushing of the wounded man into the sea; for Clooney, the heartless insult of his professional and moral bettor.

As for Michael Moore, this obese vat of liposuction uptake is not worth a syllable; perhaps a few ears of corn and some straw.

Mike Farrell, having appeared in the worst fictional representation of the Korean War ever, now continues to drive his dumbassedness into the ground like a carny roustabout with every utterance.

The tens of millions of Americans who fought in WWII dispatched the horror-show villains menacing mankind.

Now our people have freed a nation of such a tyrant and made a region ripe for peace.

The shrieking girly-men and bearded women of the carny set are aghast.

Diminishing not the least the magnificence of our force's accomplishment.

[PhilDragoo]

[Victoria Delsoul]

When Michael Moore delivered his now infamous anti-war, anti-Bush proclamation from the Oscars podium, it was difficult to discern the cheers from the jeers. Hollywood, like much of the nation, is divided over the war in Iraq.

Yep! There were good actors and actress in the old days. I wonder if there is any correlation between being a good actor and being able to think. Michael Moore can't act.

[PhilDragoo]

BrotherRed Skelton's Famous Pledge of Allegiance

The following words were spoken by the late Red Skelton on his television program in 1969 as he related the story of his teacher, Mr. Laswell, who felt his students had come to think of the Pledge of Allegiance as merely something to recite in class each day.

I used to watch the Red Skelton Show every night on our floor model Philco black and white.

When the tv repairman took the chassis to his shop to fix it we could get inside and put on puppet shows.

Our C.A.R. gang went to Vincinnes, close at hand to us Hoosiers.

[SAMWolf]

Evening PhilDragoo. Thanks for all the John Wayne pics and for the excellent "observations"

[SAMWolf]

Poor soul, Crazy Guggenheim and Reginal Van Gleason the Third. That was entertainment

[SAMWolf]

Evening Victoria.

That's the problem thay're so used to acting like someone important theey actually think they are.

[SAMWolf]

Remember the round tv screen? Red Skelton was great, LKoved Freddie the Freeloader and Gertrude and Heathcliffe

[Victoria Delsoul]

I agree.

[SAMWolf]

I saw a post somewhere that showwed most of the "Hollyweird elite" never finsihed College and some not even Hhigh School.

[Victoria Delsoul]

That's correct. I read the same article, too. They are high school dropouts and only 2 or 3 went to College.