The 3 Stooges War Effort, Hitler Satire Movie Shorts: You Nazty Spy!, I'll Never Heil Again

Last edited Sun Mar 12, 2023, 09:19 PM - Edit history (1)

- You Nazty Spy! (1940) and I'll Never Heil Again (1941).
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- This Day in Jewish History | 1940: Three Stooges' Hitler Satire 'You Nazty Spy' Premieres. America's censors shied at insulting foreign powers; Moe, Curly and Larry sneaked their anti-Hitler spoof through as an 18-minute movie short. Haaretz, Jan 19, 2016.

On January 19, 1940, the short film “You Nazty Spy,” starring the Three Stooges, had its premiere. “You Nazty Spy” was the first American movie to introduce a character that parodied Adolf Hitler – mercilessly. It got away with doing so only because the official censors in the United States, who forbade any “unfair” presentation of foreign countries, spent their time worrying about feature-length films...https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2016-01-19/ty-article/1940-three-stooges-satire-you-nazty-spy-premieres/0000017f-e2c9-d75c-a7ff-fecda1560000



* More film scenes. The Three Stooges Mocked Hitler before Chaplin.
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- A Maryland Man Wants This Three Stooges Film Honored. In 1940, Adolf Hitler faced a most unlikely enemy: the Three Stooges, John Kelly, The Wash. Post, 2019. Ed.

In 1940, the Three Stooges stuck 2 fingers in Adolf Hitler’s eyes. Now, James Thompson of Greenbelt, Md., wants the Library of Congress to give the Three Stooges 2 thumbs up. The 63-year-old movie buff thinks the slapstick trio’s short “You Nazty Spy!” deserves a place in the National Film Registry. “Every year I look to see if it’s been added, and it isn’t,” said Thompson, a retired employee of Prince George’s & Montgomery counties. So he’s doing something about it. On Tues. evening Thompson rented out the Old Greenbelt Theatre & offered a free screening of 4 Stooges films, including “You Nazty Spy!” & 1941’s similarly themed “I’ll Never Heil Agan."..

‘You Nazty Spy’ & ‘I’ll Never Heil Again’ are pure satires,” he told me before the screening. “They aren’t your typical pie in the face, poke in the eye, slap to the head. These 2 films are verbal & visual gems.” High praise, indeed, but what cinches it for Thompson is the timing. “You Nazty Spy!” was released in January 1940, 23 months before the US entered World War II. It was also 11 months before Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” was released. Chaplin’s critically acclaimed Hitler spoof was named to the registry in 1997. “I feel this film is better than Charlie Chaplin’s,” Thompson said. And it’s special because the team that created “You Nazty Spy!” — the trio of actors, the director & writers — were Jewish. They had skin in the game. There’s nothing subtle about the 18-min. film.

The Stooges — Moe Howard, Larry Fine & Curly Howard — play hapless paperhangers pressed by greedy arms merchants into taking control of the country of Moronika. Moe becomes the dictator Moe Hailstone. With the addition of an electrical tape mustache — & his bowl haircut parted in the middle — he’s the Führer’s spitting image. The country’s motto is “Moronika Uber Alles,” & its symbol is a pair of snakes twisted into a swastika. The film includes references to book burning & goose stepping, & it lampoons fascism’s inherent violence. When a suspicious peasant is brought before Moe, the dictator barks, “Put him in a concentrated camp!” The film is a reminder that plenty of people knew how bad Nazi Germany was from the very beginning.

A lot of the wordplay is inscrutable to a modern audience, depending as it does on knowledge of long-ago fads & celebrities. But some is timeless. Gary Lassin — curator of the Stoogeum, a Penn. museum of Three Stooges memorabilia — scrutinized the comedy team’s 190 short films & found that at least 38 of them contained a Yiddish term or expression. Thompson isn’t Jewish, or even very religious. His gods & prophets are the comic actors of an earlier generation. “I was 3 when I started watching the Stooges,” he said.."The rise of anti-Semitism in the country, the mass murders at the Jewish synagogue, the white supremacy murders at the Christian church in the south & the rise of the neo-Nazi movement, it all just got to me,” he said. “It’s sort of my mission at the moment. With the things going on in our country the last couple of years — the violence, the hatred, seeing the Nazi flag carried alongside the flag of the US — this is my way of speaking out.”...https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/in-1940-adolf-hitler-faced-a-most-unlikely-enemy-the-three-stooges/2019/05/15/d0155472-7719-11e9-b3f5-5673edf2d127_story.html