3 Stooges: Meet Hercules [VHS]
Very much in the tradition of such Columbia Three Stooges period shorts  as "Back to the Woods," the 1962 costume epicThe Three Stooges Meet  Herculesis 100% pure Moe-Larry-Curly Joe comedy, with the barest of a ho- hum love interest to detract from the nonsense at hand. Working at the pharmacy  of an ill-tempered boss (George N. Neise) and friends of a budding time-machine  inventor named Schuyler (Quinn Redeker), the Stooges and Schuyler, along with  the obligatory attractive female, Diana (Vicki Trickett), are transported back  to the time of Hercules. Here the legendary hero (Samson Burke) is the enforcer  for King Odius (Neise in a double role), and anachronisms are rampant in an  English-speaking ancient Greece.Twice condemned as galley slaves, the Stooges see that Schuyler now has the  muscles but not the self-confidence to rescue Diana and the rest of Greece from  the odious Odius. Schuyler is tricked into thinking himself all-powerful and  performs many Herculean labors (with many a stuffed animal and some decent  backscreen projection).Although Curly Joe seems a few notches above his namesake in the brains  department (which is not saying all that much), his reactions at times of real  and supposed danger are quite ordinary compared with the old Curly. In fact, it  is Moe who takes on the Curly bark at a recalcitrant prop. But the old sound  effects are there to punctuate blows to belly and head, although eye pokes are  out, due to parental objections to the influence of the trio, newly popular on  television.--Frank Behrens