After the huge departure of Snow White and The Three Stooges (1961), The Three Stooges Meet Hercules saw The Stooges return to more typical fare. This more than their previous two features with Curly Joe DeRita resembles the team's classic short films. Looking at the credits make it clear to stooge fans what one major factor in this change was. The movie was directed by Edward Bernds, who had a long career with The Stooges. His first time directing the trio was Micro-Phonies (1945), a film considered by most Stooge fans to be a real classic. Though he started directing the Stooges in the Curly-era most of the Stooges shorts he directed were during the Shemp era. In my opinion he was my favorite director of the Stooges during that time period and his Shemp films were often my favorite Shemp shorts. This did not even mark the first time Bernds directed a feature film with the Stooges. He directed the B-Western, Gold Raiders (1951), which featured The Stooges as comedy reliefs to George O'Brien's western hero. After Hercules Bernds would direct another Stooge feature film, Three Stooges in Orbit (1962) as well as the live action wraparounds for the Stooges' TV cartoon show, The New Three Stooges (1965). However, working with the Stooges was only part of a long and varied career for Bernds. To quote Leonard Maltin, "He was never a household name, even in Hollywood, but I defy you to think of anyone else who worked with both Mary Pickford and Sam Peckinpah, wrote for Shemp Howard and Elvis Presley, and directed Hugh Hurbert and Zsa Zsa Gabor." Besides his films with the Stooges movie comedy fans might know Bernds for directing some of The Bowery Boys movies.
Another reason this film is a return to The Stooges' roots is because of its producer and co-writer Norman Maurer (who was also Moe's son in law). Though Norman had not worked on a Stooges film before he had worked with the Stooge characters before in their comic book adventures. By the time Norman Maurer made comics with the Stooges, he was already well established in the industry having worked on Daredevil comics and Boy Comics. His good friend since childhood, Joe Kubert had made a deal with Jubilee Publications' owner, Archer St. John, to produce and edit comics for the company. Joe called Norman suggesting that he would become his partner. In the same conversation, he suggested they make comics using the Stooges. Norman began negotiating with the boys about using them as subjects for these comics and in May of 1947, a deal was made. The first Three Stooges comic book though wouldn't appear until February of 1949 with Norman as the writer, editor and illustrator of the series. At first these comics were adaptions of the boys' short films, but in time the comics would come to tell original stories. Over the course of making these comics, Norman got a real handle on who these characters were and made comics that are truly delightful for fans of their films. By the time this movie was made, Norman had become the Stooges' manager. When Columbia made a Stooge feature, Stop! Look! and Laugh! (1960) without any involvement from the actual Stooges, The Stooges tried to sue. This ended up being settled out of court, with The Stooges being given a contract to make a feature film for them with Maurer as producer. This would end up not only applying to The Three Stooges Meet Hercules but all the Stooge features to follow. During the 1970's and 80's, Norman would work as a writer for Hanna-Barbera's TV cartoons. His work during this time would also have its Stooge connections. He would be a writer on The New Scooby-Doo! Movies (1972-1973) including the episodes where The Mystery Inc. Gang would meet The Three Stooges. He also created a short-lived series for the studio called The Robonic Stooges (1978), which would feature the trio as animated superheroes. He would also write for Scooby's All Star Laff-A-Lympics (1977-1979) which featured a genie named Babu, who was voiced by former stooge, Joe Besser.
In this film The Stooges are druggists working for a real jerk named Dimsal (George N. Neise). They become friends with their next door neighbor a shy introverted inventor Skyler (Quinn Redeker), who is working on a time machine. The boys decide to help Skyler with his invention with some not helpful advice from Dimsal who hates and bullies Skyler. By accident the boys, Skylar and Skylar's girlfriend (Vicki Trickett) end up traveling back to ancient Greece, where they accidently help put the evil Odious (who looks and acts a lot like Dismal (and is played by the same actor)) on the throne. The boys and their friends have to set history right and contend with the powerful Hercules (Samson Burke (how perfect is it that the person playing such a strong man has the first name Samson)) who is being used by Odious.
Larry named this as his favorite of the feature films, The Stooges made and it is easy to see why. This is sa fast moving and very fun movie that is sure to put a smile on my face every time I watch it. As should be true of every Stooges, this is a movie with no pretentions about being high art and never takes itself even the slightest bit seriously. This is a movie after all that features a villain named Odious (who Curly Joe even refers to as a skunk) and manages to put some pie throwing in a story about accident Greece. And it is this light breezy feeling that makes this movie so delightful. This movie accomplishes what should seem impossible and that is to keep the energy of a Stooge short going throughout a feature length run time. This movie never runs out of energy and becomes dull nor does the slapstick become too repetitive. Now to be fair, this may not be as laugh out loud funny as The Stooges' best shorts, but none of the jokes really fall flat either and many of them really do put a smile on your face. Though The Stooges were no longer young when they made this film and their antics have been toned down as their films were more aimed at children at this time, the trio show that they are still top-notch slapstick comedians. They carry out each gag as old pros, who know this material inside and out, but have never lost their passion for it. Even though there is a love story between the supporting characters and some B movie monsters (yes, the film does show its low budget during these scenes), The Stooges remain the film's focus and with that in mind I can't help but recommend this movie to Stooge fans everywhere. While it certainly has the faults that many B movies around this time have, there is more than enough for this Stooge fan to love.
This movie also benefits from a strong supporting cast. The boys' inventor friend was played by Quinn K. Redeker, who just beginning a long career that is going on today. Like many actors in The Stooges' feature films, he has done much of his work for TV. In the 1960's and 70's he was mostly playing one off roles in episodes of various TV shows like Bonanza (1959-1973), Mannix (1967-1975), Adam 12 (1968-1975) and The Rockford Files (1974-1980). He became a much more familiar face to TV watchers starting in 1979 with his regular roles in Days of Our Lives (1968-present) and The Young and the Restless (1973-present). He would appear in over 800 episodes of Days of Our Lives and over 100 episodes of The Young and the Restless. Vicki Trickett, who plays his love interest on the other hand had a very brief career in front to the camera. She only appeared in 4 feature films (including this one). Her other movies were Pepe (1960), Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) and The Cabinet of Caligari (1962). George N. Neise who was excellent as the villain was mostly acting in TV playing one off characters on various shows like The Rifleman (1958-1963), Have Gun Will Travel (1957-1963), Wagon Train (1957-1965) and Get Smart (1965-1970). He would again play a villain in The Stooges' next feature film, The Three Stooges in Orbit (1962). Long time Stooge supporting player Emil Sitka has a small part as a Shepard. He first worked with The Stooges in Curly's last short film Half Wits Holiday (1947). During the Shemp-era and the Joe Besser-era he would become a regular face in The Stooges' short films. He will be forever beloved by Stooge fans for his immortal role in the short film, Brideless Groom (1947) where he delivered the immortal line, "Hold hands you love birds." He is a rare supporting player who appeared in Stooge films with all six of The Three Stooges. The King of Rhodes is played by the immortal Hal Smith. TV comedy fans will know him from his reoccuring role as Otis the drunk in The Andy Griffith Show (1960-1968). Cartoon fans will know him for doing voices in various Hanna-Barbera TV cartoons including The Flintstones (1960-1966), Scooby Doo, Where Are You! (1969-1970), The Peter Potamus Show (1964-1966) and The Huckleberry Hound Show (1958-1961). He also voiced Elmer Fudd briefly after Arthur Q. Bryan's death and did various voices for The Stooges' TV cartoon show, The New Three Stooges (1965). Director Edward Bernds was not impressed with Samson Burke who played Samson. Bernds talked about him stating, "He was a through amateur! Scene after scene, his eyes would seek me out for direction! Eventually it got so bad that I had to hide from his view. Samson was a bit on the timid side. I would say Moe was braver doing all this physical stuff than this might mass of muscle."
This movie was shot in 13 days with everyone have weekends off from shooting. The first days of shooting were Tuesday June 6, 1961, through June 9. Shooting continued on Monday June 12 through Friday June 16. The last batch of shooting was done from Monday June 19 through Thursday June 22. This is quite a contrast to their classic shorts which were often shot in 3 or 4 days. Because of this movie's low budget, clips from other movies were used at times. These clips came from the Columbia feature films, You Can't Take It With You (1938), Slaves of Babylon (1953) and Salome (1953). Clips were even used from a couple of Stooges short films, What's the Matador (1942) and Half Shot Shooters (1936). This movie was the biggest hit of any of the Stooges features yet grossing $2 million worldwide. With this in mind it is no wonder that Columbia would sign on the Stooges to make more feature length movies for them.
This is by far one of The Stooges' best feature films.
Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin, 1962
Resources Used
The Three Stooges Scrapbook by Jeff Lenburg, Joan Howard Maurer and Greg Lenburg
Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy by Leonard Maltin.
https://mediahistoryproject.org/
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