"Three Missing Links" is an American 18-minute live action short film from 1938, so this one has its 80th anniversary this year. Director is multiple Oscar nominee White, writer is Kramer and these two worked on quite a few Three Stooges short films like this one here. Like all the others, it is in black-and-white and as it is one of the earlier (but not earliest) entries, this is certainly still including Curly who looks young and healthy in here about a decade ago before Shemp had to replace him. The Stooges here enter the world of film while all they really wanted was cleaning the studio. So Moe and Larry end up playing natives and Curly was playing the role of a gorilla. This also shows you how Curly was still in the position of being the comedic star from the trio. What else? Oh yeah racism. The scenes with a Black actor here and the role he plays as well as Moe in black face makeup on one occasion show everybody what it should be like. No whining by politically correct sissies or those who are really offended by every minor thing at all while today the press would have stomped the Stooges and ended their careers for this short movie. But that this is a brave film does not mean it's a good one sadly. As always with the Stooges, realism is completely absent from the plot. And I still believe the Stooges, especially the underused Larry, are all much better actors than they are allowed to show us in their works. Maybe it would have helped if the scripts came from them too. Anyway, I am writing this as somebody who is generally not the biggest Stooges fan, so if you like them more usually, then maybe you will here as well. It's an interesting subject I guess, but most of the jokes weren't working and the one with the actually real gorilla went on for way too long. That's all I guess. I give this one, one of the Stooges' more, but not most, known short film a thumbs-down.
Review of Three Missing Links
