There's no doubt I am a HUGE fan of the Stooges. I am a purist in most senses thinking classics should be left alone. So when Columbia announced their new
Chroma Choice technology which colorizes B&W films, I was apprehensive about taking my beloved Stooges and bastardizing them with fake colors.
Before I go into what I think about the coloring process, let's talk about what shorts are on the two separately sold discs or sold together as a set. DISC ONE - Goofs on the Loose features the shorts Men in Black, The Sitter Downers, Punch Drunks, Playing the Ponies.
Men in Black is of course one of the best shorts that trio ever made and has been released numerous times. It actually was nominated for an oscar and features the trio pretending to be doctors. Punch Drunks too is one of the best and features Curly's famous Pop Goes The Weasel punching rountine. New to DVD for the first time is The Sitter Downers which I had not seen in quite a while. It features the Stooges stuggling with a prefabricated cottage and their newlyweds. Also new to DVD on the disc for the first time, Playing the Ponies has the Stooges feeding peppers to an aging race horse for some explosive fun.
DISC TWO - Stooged and Confoosed features the lesser well known shorts Violent Is the Word for Curly, You Nazty Spy!, No Census No Feeling, An Ache in Every Stake.
Violent Is The Word For Curly has been on DVD before and features the Stooges in class teaching their crazy but catchy "Swinging The Alphabet" song. The next three shorts are all new to DVD and begin with You Natzy Spy which has Moe becoming a Hitler like dictator of a fake country. No Census, No Feeling has the boys tangled up in census taking wrecking havoc everywhere from a football game to a fancy bridge party. Finally An Ache In Every Stake has the trio preparing a birthday party that explodes in their faces.
A good mix of classics with new to DVD make both of these disc worthy for any fan of the stooges.
The Disc:
Ok so this Chroma Choice thing goes beyond the Stooges with Columbia planning to recreate dozens of their most famous black and white movies in color. Our beloved Stooges just got the first shot and I must admit I am pleasantly surprised. The look of the coloring isn't bright and new like those old Ted Turner projects. No the color looks EXACTLY like films of its time with a sort of 1940's faded coloring. The color is beautiful with everything seeming to have a natural look for the day and time that these shorts were originally filmed.
There is a reason for this which is explained in one of the extras. It seems that the company that created this technology takes EVERY and I mean EVERY object in the film and places a polygon around it to separate it out. Then painstaking research is done to find out what these objects would have looked like back in the 1930's and 1940's such as a can of baking powder. Everything from the boys clothing to some small insignifcant seeming object in the background is paid attention to in the coloring process.
This results in a look that stunned me and my father who never thought they could make it look just like it was filmed this way years ago. We honestly expected fancy 2004 looking color but they pulled off the ultimate challenge in making the stooges look truly authentic. Watching these shorts in color brings a whole different level to the comedy. It makes them seem brand new all over again.
Of course the best part of the entire thing is that Columbia includes enhanced Black and White versions for the purists that look totally beautiful. Either way these shorts look stunning and this has become a must have for the true Stooge fan. Just seeing Larry's red hair brings a whole new sense to the word porcupine.
bottom line:
Columbia gets our highest mark for going beyond the norm to truly stun us. I never expected the Stooges to look right in color but boy was I shocked. Even my dad who is a hardcore purist admitted that they did a good job, though we both still prefer the black and white versions. Thank you Columbia from one of the Stooges biggest fans for these awesome discs.
5 out of 5
By - Brian Gray
