The Three Stooges vs. Adolf Hitler: 4 Short Films

Director: Jules White

1940, 60 minutes, Digital, NR

Cast: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Sponsored by James William Thompson

Set in the country of Moronica, three men plot to overthrow their king and appoint a dictator. Their choice is a paperhanger named Moe Hailstone. With Curly as his Field Marshal and Larry as his Minister of Propaganda, the boys take control of the country. The citizens are unhappy and drive Hailstone out of power.

You Nazty Spy! satirized the Nazis and the Third Reich and helped publicize the Nazi threat in a period when the United States was still neutral about World War II, and the isolationist sentiment was prevalent among the public. During this period, isolationist senators such as Burton Wheeler and Gerald Nye objected to Hollywood films on grounds that they were anti-Nazi propaganda vehicles designed to mobilize the American public for war. You Nazty Spy! was the first Hollywood film to spoof Hitler. It was released nine months before the Charlie Chaplin film The Great Dictator, which began filming in September 1939. You Nazty Spy! was filmed on December 5-9, 1939.

We will show four Three Stooges short films (20 minutes each) in which the trio tackled such issues. You Nazty Spy, I’ll Never Heil Again, Back from the Front, and Gents Without Cents.