You know, there's a whole other version of Wikipedia out there for right-wingers. I'm not going to give the name of it, but I did browse it a little bit. It certainly lived up to its name, if nothing else. I browsed about three different topics, and then the following question came up: "Should the United States have entered World War II?" They've expanded since then to include World War I, and probably the Civil War, for all I know. Now, I already know I'm not smart enough to debate, or even ponder, such deep, philosophical questions, but from a movie standpoint I can answer that easily: How about Raiders of the Lost Ark? And the third one? Schindler's List? Saving Private Ryan? Hope and Glory? Those are my reasons we needed to enter World War II. Of course, this was before Obama was elected president when I saw that web page. I'm sure the argument now is that, well, Hawaii's not really a state anymore. The continental U.S. wasn't attacked, Pearl Harbor was! Besides, if Germany did win the war, Fatherland would be a biography and not just perverse historical fiction TRYING to be a legitimate biography!
And, of course, all the great comedians of the time had this terrible anti-German bias, making fun of Hitler and what not. Jack Benny with his To Be or Not to Be, Chaplin with The Great Dictator, and the Stooges with this week's entry, You Nazty Spy! (Damn... I've fallen behind just a smidge)
ACT ONE
Even the Stooges knew that Hitler had help. A Hitler cannot exist in a vacuum, and the Catholic church and some industrialists were champions of the chancellor's cause. And so, we begin with some bored job creators sitting around (in the fictional country of Moronica) deciding to oust the king and replace him with a dictator. The Stooges are "paperhangers" doing some work in the house of the industrialists. There's no time for them to destroy the place, as the gears of the plot turn quickly in this one. A lot to cram into 16 minutes this time. Moe (Moe Hailstone here) transforms himself into Hitler before our very eyes, also with the help of a prop moustache and messed-up hair. It's not long before Moe's giving a speech before a crowd, with Curly decked out as Mussolini, I'm assuming, and Larry as... Goebbels? I forget his comedy name already.
ACT TWO
Sorry, folks, but I gotta keep this one short. But I promise I'll spend more time on I'll Never Heil Again. All seems to be going well for Hailstone until his secretary turns out to be a double agent. I'm functionally culturally illiterate and don't know who her historical counterpart is, but she has a magic eight ball and uses it to tell Moe Hailstone's fortune. Moe grabs the ball and hits Curly on the head with it. The ball breaks into three large chunks, and turns out to have an incriminating note inside it. The secretary's plot is foiled and she makes her escape. Wacky comedy stormtroopers are called in, and they march off, kicking each other in the ass. The guy on the end always has it easy.
ACT THREE
There's a big meeting of delegates. The new secretary, a ballerina, comes dancing in. Moe and Curly start dancing. Curly laughs in his regular voice at one point, and says "I'll bet you tell that to all the boys." Oh, and of course, we dwell on the comedy map shown in the picture for a little while, a Stooge comedy motif to be seen later on as well. Why, the Simpsons even had one once! Can't remember when. And so the delegates come in. The three dictators say "Peace! Peace! We want peace!" The delegates are wise to the Orwellian nature of this statement... or maybe they're just jealous worm-eaters taking a break to do some self-loathing out in the open for a change. The boys give 'em the works. Curly gets out the golf clubs and hits them on the head. Finding this not sporting enough, he gets golf balls out, puts them on the rug and hits them at the delegates. Some of the delegates get hit, but Larry gets a golf ball in his mouth. After the four delegates are defeated, the knuckleheads' fortunes go from bad to worse. The townsfolk of Moronica (about 99% of them, if you will...) riot and start to storm the Hailstone headquarters. The three decide to release the lions. And so, down they go to release the lions. They should've gotten someone else to do it, because, well... I hate to spoil it for you, but there ends up being some very full lions in dictators' clothing emerging from the corner they went behind. Something like that. Too bad this kind of thing doesn't happen in real life to real-life dictators.
***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan
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