3 Stooges: Outlaws Is Coming [VHS]

The 1965 film The Outlaws Is Coming! is the last full-length effort by Moe, Larry, and Curly Joe. Of all their features, this is the most dated by its references to people and things that were quite familiar to audiences then, but most of which have lost their meaning over the years. When an Asian guy with long hair and guitar passes by, Moe's exclaiming "A Japanese Beatle" still has a point. But when Larry and the bartender are doing what is obviously a spoof on a then-current commercial, one looks in vain for footnotes to support the joke.

Even the presence of Laugh-In comic Henry Gibson as Charley Horse (a typical Stooges name), a hippy-dippy son of a chief, loses its humor for a younger generation unfamiliar with the once popular show and the flower child slang the character uses. Youngsters might still recognize Adam West, who was yet to play Batman, since the series is still being rerun. But they will not get all the references to then-popular television heroes such as Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson, who show up in a parody of their usual characters along with Jessie James, Rob Dalton, Wild Bill Hickok, and Johnny Ringo (with a reference to the British Ringo on the soundtrack). Belle Star is played glamorously by Nancy Kovak, and gunman Trigger Mortis is played with good villainy by Mort Mills (a name as funereal as his character's!).

The plot is environmentally correct, with West and Stooges wanting to save the buffalo, while the evil Rance Roden (Don Lamond) wants to wipe them out to infuriate the Indians and then sell them guns to wreak revenge. The inevitable chase at the end is not really bad, even down to the pie throwing. All in all, an amusing romp, even if knowledge of 1965 nostalgic details are needed to follow many of the gags. --Frank Behrens