Mjeteconer
Just perfect...
BoardChiri
Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay
Jenna Walter
The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
Kaelan Mccaffrey
Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.
ccthemovieman-1
We begin with a meeting of the Women Haters Club, dedicated to the idea that "romance is a crime!"What's unusual about this short movie is that all the dialog is done in rhyme. I thought it would be kind of stupid but, to be honest, a lot of it is very clever - for about five minutes. Whoever wrote this did a pretty good job. The music is nice, too, but five minutes was enough. It's cool at first but wears thin in a hurry.The emphasis on poetry and song drastically diminished the slapstick humor, the normal wisecracks and the atmosphere that made The Three Stooges what they were. I can see why this early experiment was just that: an experiment, and thankfully a one-time experience.Just give me back the Stooges as they are - crude, violent, stupid and funny - with Curly and his squeaky voice, not singing poets, for cryin' out loud. This turned out to be one of the longest 20 minutes I've ever endured.
LCShackley
This is a very bizarre entry in the Stooge canon. In many ways, it follows the basic layout of their other shorts, but it's tortured by a script entirely in verse. (Interestingly, the writer of the screenplay went on to write Bowery Boys films and episodes of the Mickey Dolenz vehicle CIRCUS BOY.) We don't really get to know the Stooge characters very well, and the token "beautiful dame" takes over the plot and plays the boys for...well, stooges.What impresses me about this short is that I'm fairly certain they would have had to record the music and dialog live, in other words, voices and orchestra together. (Can anyone verify this?) The Stooges could do no improvising of dialog as a result, and they had to stay linked to the rhythm of the accompaniment. It's done very skillfully and cleverly; only a few times does the sync not work well (they rush or drag their lines a bit). This early short is a promise of things to come but much too tame to take top marks.
jage1966
Woman Haters has become one of my favorite Stooges shorts. It's brilliant. All the dialogue is done in rhyme and parameter. Being their first film for Columbia, I'm amazed the Stooges didn't do more shorts like this one. And it's a shame Marjorie White died in a car accident about a year later. She really held her own against the Stooges and I bet she would've become a regular in the Stooges shorts. I have a reproduction of the poster hanging in my apartment and it's interesting to see Curly listed as Jerry Howard on the poster. Some of my other favorites from those first few years are: Punch Drunks, Men in Black, Three Little Pigskins, Hoi Polloi, Three Little Beers, Movie Maniacs, Disorder in the Court, and of course, Violent is the Word for Curly in which the Stooges in Swingin' the Alphabet. Great stuff.
Evan J. Chase
After the 3 Stooges rid themselves of the highly annoying and abusive Ted Healy,(who was killed in a drunken brawl several years later), they were signed by Harry Cohn of Columbia for a few short films. We know 192 shorts and 23 years later they were rediscovered and revered as cult heros. Their characters were much more evolved in this first entry than any of the MGM films they did, where they yielded the spotlight to Ted Healy most of the time. Once their individual characters really materialized, by 1935, they did some of their best work. The surreal quality of Woman Haters, the lively music score and memorable song: "....for you...my life, my love, my all....." makes this an interesting first entry. A very good print is on the DVD release: "Curly Classics"
