Matri-Phony

Matri-Phony (1942)

Goofiest comedy you ever saw!

The stooges are potters in ancient Rome during the reign of Emperor Octopus Grabus. When the emperor orders all beautiful red-headed women to be brought before him so he can select a wife, Diana, a pretty red-head, seeks refuge with the stooges. Some soldiers find Diana's hiding place and they are all brought to the palace where the stooges escape and try to pass of Curly as Diana, having broken the emperor's glasses. Their ruse fails and they're caught by the palace guards as they try to escape.

Date of release
1942-07-02
TMDB
5.5 / 10 (13)
Runtime
17m
Genres
Comedy
Director
Harry Edwards

Casting

Interesting facts

Matri-Phony is a 1942 short subject directed by Harry Edwards starring American slapstick comedy team The Three Stooges. It is the 63rd entry in the series released by Columbia Pictures starring the comedians, who released 190 shorts for the studio between 1934 and 1959.

Production notes

Matri-Phony was the first short filmed in 1942, shot over a period of three weeks between March 5 and March 25, 1942. It is the first Stooge film to employ the accordion-based, driving version of "Three Blind Mice" over the opening credits. This faster theme would be used until the end of 1944. The film title is a pun on the word "matrimony.

Matri-Phony had a difficult gestation. The three-week shooting schedule was unusual for a Columbia short film, as most were completed over four consecutive days. It is not known how many days it took to film, with six being an estimate. There were material script changes, reshoots and deleted footage, with most of the blame aimed at director Harry Edwards who had developed a reputation at Columbia Pictures as the studio's worst director.

Curly Howard also began to exhibit subtle hints of his slow physical decline. DVD Talk critic Stuart Galbraith IV noted that it is "demonstrated in a scene where he tries to eat a live crab (with snapping claws), a variation of the oyster-in-the-soup gag from the previous year (from Dutiful But Dumb). It's reasonably funny, but Curly's timing is just a tad off and the two scenes make quite a contrast."

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