You Nazty Spy!

Infobox Film
name = You Nazty Spy!


director = Jules White
writer = Felix Adler|
Clyde Bruckman
starring = Moe Howard
Larry Fine
Curly Howard
Richard Fiske
Lorna Gray
Dick Curtis
Don Beddoe
Florine Dickson
Little Billy
John Tyrrell
Bert Young
Joe Murphy
Eddie Laughton
Al Thompson
producer = Jules White
distributor = Columbia Pictures
released = flagicon|US January 19, 1940
runtime = 17' 59"
country = USA
language = English
preceded_by = "Three Sappy People"
followed_by = "Rockin' thru the Rockies"
amg_id = 1:227203
imdb_id = 0033281
"You Nazty Spy!" is the 44th short subject starring American slapstick comedy team the Three Stooges. The trio made a total of 190 shorts for Columbia Pictures between 1934 and 1959.

Plot

In the fictional country of Moronica, three munitions manufacturers—Messrs. Ixnay (Richard Fiske), Ohnay (Dick Curtis) and Amscray (Don Beddoe)—decide their country is in need of a change. They decide to implement a dictatorship, oust the king, and go about finding some guinea pigs. Ixnay volunteers the three wallpaper hangers simultaneously working in his dining room, the Stooges.

Ixnay presents Moe Hailstone, Curly Gallstone, and Larry Pebble with the offer to run Moronica. Moe is instituted as the leader (the Adolf Hitler role), with Curly as Field Marshal (spoofing Hermann Göring), and Larry as Minister of Propaganda (an amalgam of Joseph Goebbels and Joachim von Ribbentrop). After his takeover, Hailstone proceeds to give a speech to the masses, cueing Larry to display signs reading APPLAUSE, CHEERS and even HISS.

However, the daughter (Lorna Gray) of the overthrown king pays Hailstone a visit, going by the name Mattie Herring (a spoof of World War I spy Mata Hari). The Stooges suspect she is a spy, and attempt to execute her. She escapes, and gathers a huge mob to storm Hailstone's palace. The trio quickly abdicate, and flee into a lion's den.

ignificance

"You Nazty Spy!" is significant because it satirized the Nazis and the Third Reich and helped publicize the Nazi threat in a period when the United States was still neutral about World War II, and isolationist sentiment was prevalent among the public. During this period, isolationist senators such as Burton Wheeler and Gerald Nye objected to Hollywood films on grounds that they were anti-Nazi propaganda vehicles designed to mobilize the American public for war. According to the [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033281/trivia Internet Movie Database] , "You Nazty Spy!" was the first Hollywood film to spoof Hitler. It was released nine months before the more famous Charlie Chaplin film "The Great Dictator". Heavy publicity in Hollywood about Chaplin's planned film began to circulate in mid-1939, and may have helped serve as inspiration for the film. Much like the case of Chaplin, Moe Howard's physical resemblance to Hitler (when in makeup) was probably a key source of inspiration. The Hays code discouraged or prohibited many types of political and satirical messages in films, requiring that the history and prominent people of other countries must be portrayed "fairly"; but short subjects may have been subject to less attention than feature films.

Another notable feature of "You Nazty Spy!" was the fact that it was implying business interests were behind the Nazi rise to power. This is probably reflective of a common belief among some Americans about the Nazis at the time.

Notes

* Moe Howard became the first American actor to portray/imitate Adolf Hitler in this film. Curly also portrays Benito Mussolini.
*Both Moe Howard and Larry Fine cited "You Nazty Spy!" as their favorite Three Stooges short.
*"You Nazty Spy!" was followed by a sequel, "I'll Never Heil Again", in 1941.
*Larry Fine injured his leg shortly before filming, and can be seen with a limp throughout the short. Interestingly, Joseph Goebbels, who Fine was mocking, did in fact walk with a limp due to a club foot.
*The exclamation "Beblach!" used several times in the film is a Yiddish word meaning "beans" (The Stooges, all of the Jewish faith, occasionally worked a word or phrase of Yiddish into their dialogue.)
*A colorized version of this film was released in 2004. It was part of the DVD collection entitled " [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0002A2WG8/ Stooged & Confoosed] "

Further reading

*"Moe Howard and the Three Stooges"; by Moe Howard [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0806507233] , (Citadel Press, 1977).
*"The Complete Three Stooges: The Official Filmography and Three Stooges Companion"; by Jon Solomon [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0971186804] , (Comedy III Productions, Inc., 2002).
*"The Three Stooges Scrapbook"; by Jeff Lenburg, Joan Howard Maurer, Greg Lenburg [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0806509465] (Citadel Press, 1994).
*"The Three Stooges: An Illustrated History, From Amalgamated Morons to American Icons"; by Michael Fleming [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0767905563] (Broadway Publishing, 2002).
*"One Fine Stooge: A Frizzy Life in Pictures"; by Steve Cox and Jim Terry [http://www.amazon.com/dp/1581823630] , (Cumberland House Publishing, 2006).

External links

* [http://www.sdjewishjournal.com/stories/mar04_5.html The Three Stooges vs. Hitler]
* [http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/01.16.97/cover/stooges3-9703.html Moe, Larry and Curly: Premature Anti-Fascists]
* [http://www.stoogeworld.com/_Videography/Filmography/YouNaztySpy.htm "You Nazty Spy"] at StoogeWorld.com