{"id":27359,"date":"2018-01-12T07:35:42","date_gmt":"2018-01-12T12:35:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=27359"},"modified":"2018-01-12T08:51:55","modified_gmt":"2018-01-12T13:51:55","slug":"the-bootleg-files-myrt-and-marge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2018\/01\/12\/the-bootleg-files-myrt-and-marge\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: Myrt and Marge"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 621:<\/strong> \u201cMyrt and Marge\u201d (1933 feature film with the Three Stooges).<\/p>\n

LAST SEEN:<\/strong> It is on YouTube.<\/p>\n

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO:<\/strong> None.<\/p>\n

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS:<\/strong> It fell through the cracks.<\/p>\n

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE:<\/strong> Possible, but not likely.<\/p>\n

Fans of the Coen Brothers may recall a scene from \u201cO Brother, Where Art Thou\u201d where the central characters pause from their shenanigans to watch a corny musical movie. The film within the film was a 1933 musical comedy called \u201cMyrt and Marge,\u201d though most people would probably not have recognized it. So why did the Coen Brothers pick this, of all films? Well, it was because the Three Stooges were in that film, but due to rights clearance issues to the Stooges\u2019 imagery the Coens could not use their footage \u2013 thus, they were forced to use a non-Stooges segment from that flick.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Indeed, the only reason anyone today would seek out \u201cMyrt and Marge\u201d is because of the Stooges\u2019 presence. But back in the day, the slapstick trio were not the main selling point of this film.<\/p>\n

\u201cMyrt and Marge\u201d had its origins in a radio program that debuted in November 1931. The show was created by actress Myrtle Vail, who believed that her experiences in vaudeville could offer a wealth of stories for a daily serial. Vail played the character Myrt, an older chorus girl, and her real-life daughter Donna Damerel was cast as Marge, an inexperienced younger performer who bonded with Myrt. The program quickly became very popular, and Universal Pictures thought there would be an opportunity to transfer \u201cMyrt and Marge\u201d to the big screen.<\/p>\n

\u201cMyrt and Marge\u201d opens with a troubled rehearsal for a musical revue. Vail\u2019s Myrt is the lead dancer, but her bulky headdress keeps falling off and the poor choreography has the dancers narrowly avoiding collisions. When the show\u2019s producer announces his withdrawal from the endeavor, Myrt gladly trades her role as leading performer to producer, with the goal of raising funds to bring the show to New York.<\/p>\n

Along the way, Myrt signs a brash young comic named Eddie (Eddie Foy Jr.) to become the show\u2019s leading man. A new financial backer named Jackson is located, and a fresh young leading lady is found in the unlikeliest of places: she\u2019s Marge, the daughter of a boarding house owner in Altoona, Pennsylvania, who provides lodging to the production company during their journey through the Keystone State. But when the financial backer has lascivious plans for Marge, Eddie \u2013 who, naturally, is smitten with her \u2013 comes to her rescue and nearly goes to jail for slugging Jackson. Of course, everything works out for all involved and the show goes on, climaxing in a wild number featuring chorus girls dancing on a set built to resemble a coiled snake.<\/p>\n

Okay, so where do the Three Stooges come in? At the time, there were no \u201cThree Stooges\u201d \u2013 Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard were providing support to comic headliner Ted Healy. Billed as \u201cHoward, Fine and Howard,\u201d they were joined in this act by Healy\u2019s off-screen girlfriend Bonnie Bonnell, who usually played a scatterbrained interloper that intruded in the mirthful mischief.<\/p>\n

At the start of 1933, Healy, the Stooges and Bonnell were under contract at MGM and appeared in several two-reelers. Healy and the Stooges also appeared separately in MGM films, while Bonnell only appeared in the Healy-Stooges two-reelers. Universal Pictures reached out for Healy\u2019s participation in \u201cMyrt and Marge,\u201d and the comic and his three rough-house sidekicks were cast as stagehands. Bonnell came along as a dimwitted would-be performer who constantly tried to crash the show \u2013 for no clear reason, she did not receive screen billing even though she had a major supporting role.<\/p>\n

If a Stooges fan approaches \u201cMyrt and Marge\u201d expecting the noisy knockabout of the classic Columbia shorts from the 1930s and 1940s, they are in for a big disappointment. Their well-loved screen personas were barely formed in this film, with Curly mostly observing the action, a passive Moe offering a faint attempt at leadership and Larry getting a lion\u2019s share of dialogue. This was due primarily to Healy\u2019s insistence on hogging the camera time with bad jokes, obnoxious sarcasm and unquestioned violence. For example, he asks pianist Moe if he knows \u201cThe Road to Mandalay.\u201d When Moe asks if he wants him to play it, Healy responds, \u201cNo, I want you to take it.\u201d Or when Healy asks Larry if he knows what a burden is, Larry\u2019s response of \u201ca burden the hand is worth two in the bush\u201d is met with a loud and rather nasty Healy slap. Healy also does a seemingly endless imitation of Al Jolson singing \u201cMammy,\u201d which is supposed to be a comic highlight. (It isn\u2019t.) In fairness, one Pre-Code wisecrack from Healy is funny: \u201cWhen I walk out, I\u2019ll have a piece of mistletoe on my coattail.\u201d<\/p>\n

And speaking of Pre-Code humor, the only real laughs in \u201cMyrt and Marge\u201d comes from Ray Hedges, who recreates his radio show character of Clarence, the unapologetically effeminate costumer. While gay humor popped up in Pre-Code comedies, it was rarely as blatant or visceral as it is here. \u201cIf we could get the runs with this show that these dames get in their stockings,\u201d Clarence hisses, \u201cI\u2019d be able to make the payment on my second kimono.\u201d Later, when a chorus girl demands that Clarence put her costume in a storage trunk, he sneers and spits out, \u201cSelfish!\u201d Clarence also plays (pardon the expression) straight man to Bonnell, who does a Gracie Allen-worthy bit in explaining the mystery of her birth. Hedges was wonderful in this role, and it is a major shame that this was his only screen performance.<\/p>\n

As for the title characters, neither Vail nor Damerel registered on screen \u2013 Vail came across as bland and charmless, while Damerel seemed like a second-rate Ruby Keeler. (In an acrobatic dance number, Damerel was clearly doubled by a semi-lookalike, which didn\u2019t help her cred.) In a belated effort to remind the audience of their radio popularity, the film abruptly wraps up in a variation of the clich\u00e9d dream ending that involves the women performing behind an oversized microphone while the rest of the cast watches them and then walk off, stopping briefly to nod and smile at the camera.<\/p>\n

\u201cMyrt and Marge\u201d was a box office flop and Universal opted not to make additional films using these characters; the radio show remained on the air until 1942. The Stooges were also unhappy with their second fiddle status with Healy, and they signed papers to end their partnership shortly after production was over. Bonnell saw her film career come to a sudden close; with no offers from other studios, she left show business and married an auto parts salesman, living a quiet life until her untimely death from liver disease in 1964 at the age of 58.<\/p>\n

\u201cMyrt and Marge\u201d was never re-released by Universal, and for years the film was unavailable for review. Due to its long absence, confusion arose on whether the Stooges were in the film \u2013 Moe Howard never mentioned it in his autobiography, although a still from the film was used in the book but was mistakenly identified as a scene from the MGM \u201cDancing Lady.\u201d The film eventually turned up in a few cable television broadcasts in the 1980s, but there has never been any commercial home entertainment release. Bootleg videos of the film circulated for years and the full film can be found on YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Stooges fans who never saw the film may want to watch it (on fast forward) just so they can have a sense of completion in watching all of their movies. For everyone else, this should remain in its well-deserved obscurity.<\/p>\n

IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.<\/em><\/p>\n

Listen to \u201cThe Online Movie Show with Phil Hall<\/a>\u201d on SoundCloud, with new episodes every Monday.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 621: \u201cMyrt and Marge\u201d (1933 feature film with the Three Stooges). LAST SEEN: It is on YouTube. AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None. REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It fell through the cracks. CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Possible, but not likely. Fans of the Coen Brothers may recall a scene from \u201cO Brother, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":27360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1513],"tags":[219,700,1742],"class_list":["post-27359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bootleg-files","tag-comedy","tag-musical","tag-three-stooges"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27359"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27362,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27359\/revisions\/27362"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}