This dinky little two-reeler would have been lost to obscurity had it not been for the unlikely presence of Curly Howard in his only outing without fellow Stooges Moe Howard and Larry Fine. Curly and his comrades were working with Ted Healy at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the early 1930s and the studio occasionally split them up for separate appearances, with Curly being dumped in “Roast-Beef and Movies” in a new comedy act featuring George Givot and Bobby Callahan.
Givot was a minor comic actor whose shtick involved dialect humor – in this case, a heavy faux-Greek accent that fractured the English language. Curly (billed as “Jerry Howard”) is his omnivore sidekick who casually pulls the buttons from Givot’s jacket and eats them, and he later eats a live goldfish. Callahan has little to do except to make an occasional dumb comment and get whacked about by his teammates.
In “Roast-Beef and Movies,” this unlikely trio barges into the executive offices of a film studio and attempt to sell their productions to the dubious movie moguls. One of their films barely lasts a minute, with Curly trying to romance his girlfriend before being arrested by a Keystone Kop-style officer. Another Givot opus is a spoof on Mae West’s sexy comedies – which is interesting when you consider MGM was calling attention to Paramount’s top star. An unbilled Dorothy Granger plays the voluptuous “Easter Wester” and she is the only person on-screen who comes close to being amusing.
Givot also claims to have shot several dance numbers. These efforts actually came from a pair of MGM extravaganzas – the “Blue Daughter from Heaven” number (called the “Chinese Dance” here) came out of “Lord Byron of Broadway” and the segment called “Dust” came from “Children of Pleasure.” And, yes, there is a reason why neither of those interminable sequences are considered musical classics. The dance sequences were crafted in the two-strip Technicolor process, explains why the otherwise less-than-spectacular comedy bits were also lensed in the soft, hazy two-strip Technicolor process.
“Roast-Beef and Movies” is so bad that it is almost fascinating. Givot’s obnoxiously overbearing personality quickly becomes a bore, and his partners in comedy crime are mostly wasted by giving exaggerated reactions to their silly situations.
Shortly after the film’s production, Curly left MGM with Moe and Larry, moving their act to Columbia Pictures while renaming their act The Three Stooges. Callahan’s later career mostly consisted of uncredited bit parts, including appearances with The Three Stooges, while Givot continued playing small ethnic parts – his claim to cinematic immortality came as the voice of Tony, who sang “Bella Notte” in Disney’s “Lady and the Tramp.”
Post-script: It should be noted that Curly Howard was scheduled to have a small role as a Confederate soldier in the 1934 Civil War feature “Operator 13,” but his part was almostly entirely cut prior to release. He can be viewed for about eight seconds in one sequence, but he received no screen credit.