WOMAN HATERS, where it all began for The Three Stooges at Columbia, is more of an anomaly in The Three Stooges series. Officially, it is part of The Musical Novelties series, a series in which all the dialogue is spoken in rhyme and accompanied by music. Well, "novelty" is a good way to describe this short because that is exactly how I view it. I'm glad this short exists because it gives us a different look at The Three Stooges in a musical role, and Larry in particular does a fine job (no pun intended). That said, would I be a Three Stooges fan if all 190 shorts were like this? Not exactly. Musicals aren't really my thing, and this one holds my interest simply because of three certain actors who are in it. The rhyming dialogue gets old after a while and the Stooges really have to conform to the rhythm of the music as opposed to the rhythm they would naturally develop in later shorts, so it sounds a bit forced. I don't have much else to say with this one except I find it to be a fascinating one off.

This is a very bizarre entry in the Stooge canon. In many ways, it follows the basic layout of their other shorts, but it's tortured by a script entirely in verse. (Interestingly, the writer of the screenplay went on to write Bowery Boys films and episodes of the Mickey Dolenz vehicle CIRCUS BOY.) We don't really get to know the Stooge characters very well, and the token "beautiful dame" takes over the plot and plays the boys for...well, stooges.What impresses me about this short is that I'm fairly certain they would have had to record the music and dialog live, in other words, voices and orchestra together. (Can anyone verify this?) The Stooges could do no improvising of dialog as a result, and they had to stay linked to the rhythm of the accompaniment. It's done very skillfully and cleverly; only a few times does the sync not work well (they rush or drag their lines a bit). This early short is a promise of things to come but much too tame to take top marks.

Notable mainly as the first short the Stooges made for Columbia, their characters aren't very fully developed here--Larry, for example, is much more aggressive in this than in pretty much any other Stooge short, with the possible exception of "Punch Drunks", and Curly's voice is actually quite a bit lower than we're used to. Even allowing for all of that, though, this is really a very strained effort. The gimmick of rhyming the dialogue may have seemed clever at the time, but it gets old quickly. It has its moments--thanks mainly to the Stooges' physical comedy skills and the vivacious Marjorie White, who is terrific and would have made a great foil for the Stooges had she not been killed in a car accident a year or so after this film was made, but overall it's just not particularly good. It obviously struck a chord with audiences, though, as Columbia made 190+ more of them with the boys, so we can be thankful for that.

We see a woman haters club and three men want to join. The men are of course Moe (who plays Tom), Larry (who plays Jim) and Curly (who plays Jack). Right after they have become members Larry wants to quit because he promised a beautiful girl, Mary (Marjorie White), to marry her. After an argument with Moe and Curly they decide he has to tell that he can't marry her. After Mary's father tells a story about a guy who tried to run away from his other daughter Larry is not so sure anymore. He does marry the girl and the trouble with Moe and Curly can begin. But can they all resist the beauty and charm of Mary?This is one of the nicest Three Stooges short. Not because it is so funny, there are good moments though, but because the whole short sounds like poetry. The dialogue is put on rhyme and it is really good. Marjorie White also adds something to the whole thing. A great little movie.