Portrayal of Besser


I realize that a lot of Stooge fans don't care for Joe Besser; I personally think he was OK but the shorts with him were hurt by low budgets & recycled scripts, plus a general failure to make good use of him.

But the part of this rather lame film that deals with him is really unfair, because it's highly inaccurate and makes him look worse than he was. It's true that Larry & Moe were pretty much "stuck" with him, and that he insisted on not being hit with solid props (such as the fake hammers the Stooges used). But he wasn't difficult or uncooperative as he's portrayed here; he was humble & good-natured, and L & M treated him well. And he *did* take such Stooge abuse as head bonks, slaps, stuff dumped on his head, pies in the face (contrary to what's shown here), and even a blowtorch to the behind! The scene they show him working on here with Larry & Moe was probably never even written to be filmed with him.

His estate should have sued for slander -- although he probably wouldn't have done that himself.

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It's from the short "Pies and Guys". It a real scene. About that incident, Don't know. I think they were just showing that Besser did not really fit well and maybe Moe and Larry really knew it. But if you were a fan of Besser then I can see this upsetting you.

Every man has a price to charge and a price to pay. Yeah, I've payed mine in spades. <-- Gambit

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Well, there isn't a scene like that in "Pies And Guys," and Besser does get hit with Pies in that short.

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In his own words, Besser says that his days with the Stooges were some of the best in his career. He even attended many Stooges conventions up till his death. He wasn't fired because Moe thought 'Besser's no Stooge' (as in the TV movie). In fact, Besser wasn't fired at all. Colombia made the decision to shelve the 'Shorts' due to them falling out of style with the times. When the troup reunited due to a new popularity on TV, Besser was no longer available. Thus they found a new Stooge in Joe DeRita. The movie is quite unkind to him.

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It was a movie, not a documentary. Contrary to how it captivates the audience into thinking they're watching "how it happened," they DO still embellish movies about real-life people for entertainment factors. In doing so, certain people get portrayed not so accurately. Very few documentary-style movies hit the bull's eye, unfortunately...some come close, some are waaaaaaay off the mark. IMO this movie seemed to get some facts pretty close to the way they were documented, but the truth is, unless someone who was there was being consulted, reenacting incidents that happened a long time ago aren't going to be perfect, and even if they are, how many people are really going to know they weren't? Even when people who were there are consultants, they often don't tell the truth entirely, embellish the truth, or flat out lie to make for an interesting story (or lie unknowingly, just because their memory has changed over time). It's a known scientific fact that people's minds "fill in blanks" and add fictional aspects to factual memories over time, and even though they believe they're recounting the truth, it can actually be very inaccurate.

Personally, I really dislike the Besser stuff so I didn't care too much one way or the other how he was portrayed...he was no replacement for Curly or Shemp. He just got the unfortunate opportunity to be in a position where a lot of 3 Stooges fan hated him, and would have hated ANYONE in that position, so it actually wasn't really his fault for all the hatred.

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In reality, when the Stooges' career outlook began to improve, they DID want to include Besser, but because they were going to have to travel a lot, he turned them down. His wife had become quite ill, and he didn't want to go on the road. I don't think Besser appeared onstage with Larry & Moe more than a coupla times and those would have been gigs in California. In Joan Maurer's "Scrapbook," there's a copy of a poster advertising a personal appearance of the Howard-Fine-Besser trio.
"May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?"

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Interesting info!

»«ëÕ|{¥(V)
I can't understand your crazy moon language.

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