BEING CLASSIFIED AS both an Experimental Film and a Comedy Short 2 Reeler, ROAST BEEF AND MOVIES misses the mark for entertainment. It is definitely much more of the former than the latter. Perhaps it is a prime example of trying to be all things to all men, movies' division.
OWING TO THE Deep Pockets of its studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM to its friends), the short subject has a far more luxurious appearance than most entries in the Short Subject field, regardless of the studio involved. There is a very high number of players on screen; especially being that this is a 2 reeler designed to play as a supporting film for the showing of a feature.
REGARDING THAT CAST, the roster features people with mostly unknown names; although so many faces of these performers are familiar. On screen and very visible are Si Jenks, Dorothy Granger and a young Warren Hymer. There also a great number of young dancers; who appear in the two 'experimental' dance production numbers.
AS FOR THE movie itself, it is what could well have been a story meant for the Stooges when they were under the control of taskmaster/straight man Ted Healy. As an economy measure (had to $ave $ome Buck$ Somewhere), there are only 2 'Stooges' in Bob Callahan & 'Jerry' Howard. (In spite of some who are obviously disappointed in Curly's performance, we thought he did quite well without Moe & Larry.)
WITH THE ANNOUNCED purpose of making this movie short's being as a test of the 2 Strip Technicolour process, we don't know how it turned out. No one ever told us. Could the Jury still be out? We thought that this process is somewhat of an improvement over B&W, it is not much better than the old practices of using blue (night scenes), yellow (day scenes) as well as the sepia tones that were very popular at one time.
FOR THIS TITLE, we can only surmise what is the relationship of ROAST BEEF AND MOVIES to the plot line, thin as that may be. As for our ideas on the subject, we can only guess.
SO, WHETHER OR not you want to hear it, we believe it's a sort of play on Ethnic Humour. The main character (George Givot) is called Gus Parkyurkarkus and sports a lampooning accent of a Greek immigrant to the US. Ergo, inasmuch as many Greek families go into the Restaurant Business, we drew the conclusion that ROAST BEEF AND MOVIES meant just that.
AND OUR VERDICT is that this one is great as a snapshot in the History of the 3 Stooges and should be viewed, if only once. Approaching it in any other manner with any expectations of entertainment will disappoint.
OWING TO THE Deep Pockets of its studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM to its friends), the short subject has a far more luxurious appearance than most entries in the Short Subject field, regardless of the studio involved. There is a very high number of players on screen; especially being that this is a 2 reeler designed to play as a supporting film for the showing of a feature.
REGARDING THAT CAST, the roster features people with mostly unknown names; although so many faces of these performers are familiar. On screen and very visible are Si Jenks, Dorothy Granger and a young Warren Hymer. There also a great number of young dancers; who appear in the two 'experimental' dance production numbers.
AS FOR THE movie itself, it is what could well have been a story meant for the Stooges when they were under the control of taskmaster/straight man Ted Healy. As an economy measure (had to $ave $ome Buck$ Somewhere), there are only 2 'Stooges' in Bob Callahan & 'Jerry' Howard. (In spite of some who are obviously disappointed in Curly's performance, we thought he did quite well without Moe & Larry.)
WITH THE ANNOUNCED purpose of making this movie short's being as a test of the 2 Strip Technicolour process, we don't know how it turned out. No one ever told us. Could the Jury still be out? We thought that this process is somewhat of an improvement over B&W, it is not much better than the old practices of using blue (night scenes), yellow (day scenes) as well as the sepia tones that were very popular at one time.
FOR THIS TITLE, we can only surmise what is the relationship of ROAST BEEF AND MOVIES to the plot line, thin as that may be. As for our ideas on the subject, we can only guess.
SO, WHETHER OR not you want to hear it, we believe it's a sort of play on Ethnic Humour. The main character (George Givot) is called Gus Parkyurkarkus and sports a lampooning accent of a Greek immigrant to the US. Ergo, inasmuch as many Greek families go into the Restaurant Business, we drew the conclusion that ROAST BEEF AND MOVIES meant just that.
AND OUR VERDICT is that this one is great as a snapshot in the History of the 3 Stooges and should be viewed, if only once. Approaching it in any other manner with any expectations of entertainment will disappoint.