The Three Stooges in Orbit (1962)

Director:

Edward Bernds

Writers:

Norman Maurer (story)
Elwood Ullman (writer)

Release Date:

4 July 1962 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

IT'S NEW! IT'S NUTTY! THE STOOGES PLAY RING-AROUND-THE-MOON WITH A MOB OF MIXED-UP MARTIANS!!

Plot:

The Stooges must battle alien spies to safeguard a goofy scientist's revolutionary new vehicle.

Plot Keywords:

Invention | Inventor | The Three Stooges | Space | Mushroom Cloud

Cast

Moe Howard	...	Moe (as The Three Stooges)
Larry Fine	...	Larry (as The Three Stooges)
Joe DeRita	...	Curly-Joe (as The Three Stooges)
Carol Christensen	...	Carol Danforth
Edson Stroll	...	Captain Tom Andrews
Emil Sitka	...	Professor Danforth
George N. Neise	...	Ogg / Airline Pilot
Rayford Barnes	...	Zogg / Airline Co-Pilot
Norman Leavitt	...	Williams
Nestor Paiva	...	Chairman
Don Lamond	...	Colonel Smithers
Peter Brocco	...	Doctor Appleby
Thomas Glynn	...	George Galveston
Jean Charney	...	WAF Sergeant
Peter Dawson	...	General Bixby

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

Actors George N. Neise and Rayford Barnes, who play the Martians Ogg and Zogg, can be seen without the heavy Martian makeup as the airline pilot and co-pilot.

Quotes:

Moe: The visibility is zero
Larry: Yeah, and we can't see either!

Movie Connections:

Featured in The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made (2004) (V)

If this is their best, their worst must be torture

First of all, the Stooges spend almost no time in orbit at all in this film. Maybe I was thinking of "Abbott and Costello Go to Mars" when I thought this would be more space oriented. All that wouldn't matter if this had been any good.

The movie starts out with a somewhat interesting narration by a Peter Graves-like voice, giving us a history of the centuries of speculations of what shape Martian life might take. It turns out the "startling answer" to this question is that Martians look like guys in crude rubber masks that are a cross between Frankenstein's monster and the people from the "Twilight Zone" episode "Eye of the Beholder." In fact, one of them is a guy in a rubber mask. Why did his superiors go to the trouble of giving him cosmetic surgery to look human if he's going to go and disguise himself as a Martian? Mars is in a lot of trouble anyway, if their entire invasion consists of two soldiers creeping around an old man's house.

Somebody made a good point that at least the aliens speak another language instead of English, like so many sci-fi movies, but those scenes drag, as if the Martians are waiting for the viewers to catch up to the subtitles. This actually leads to one of the few humorous moments, where Moe does read the subtitles, but since this comes about fifteen minutes before the end of the movie, it doesn't help much.

Maybe the haunted house elements made me start thinking this was a lot like a literal, full-length, live action version of an old Hannah Barbera cartoon. The humor is so lame and predictable. How many times did somebody say some variation on, "I'm not dumb, you know," and then they go and do something dumb? Oh, look, somebody has just carefully laid out a bunch of pies while the Stooges are wreaking havoc in front of some distinguished army brass. I wonder what's going to happen next?

There's also a pointless romance between the professor's daughter and an army captain. They spend most of their time staring dreamily at each other. Later, you know the captain is at the door by the way the romantic music starts playing before she can even answer it, which is one of the unintentionally funny moments.

It's probably obvious I'm not a Three Stooges fan. I saw this as the second part of a double feature, and I stuck around to see if my opinion of them improved at all. I should've walked out like nearly the entire audience did. I did like that made for TV bio-pic where Paul Ben-Victor played Moe, however. I just apparently can't stand their shtick.