Product Description

Moe, Larry, and Joe embark on a worldwide journey with the great-grandson of Phileas Fogg a la AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS. Crime and attempted murder clouds the voyage, but in the end Fogg and the Stooges are successful.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10536 in DVD
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 2003-05-13
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 94 minutes

Amazon.com
The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze (1963) has some distinction among the few features made by Moe and Larry with Joe DeRita. Basically a retelling of the Jules Verne classic, the plot has the added twist of Phineas Fogg III having to emulate the experience of his ancestor but without paying a penny in doing so. Again there is a bank robbery that is blamed on Fogg, but this time the culprits actively attempt to stop his progress since the perpetuator is the very villain who made the bet to begin with.

A personable Jay Sheffield plays the circumnavigator straight and love interest Joan Freeman does what acting she can, given a stereotyped role. What is interesting is that the Stooges, at least in their opening scenes, try to play English servants, accents and all, but they fall into more familiar patterns as the film progresses. While in India, the three get to reprise the vaudeville routine of the nearly blind Maja who goes "Aha?" (done better by Curly in "Three Little Pirates"). While in San Francisco, they reprise the fight sequence of "Punch Drunks" (again surpassed by Curly in the second Stooges short way back in 1934) in which Curly Joe can win only when driven berserk by the sound of "Pop Goes the Weasel" as played by Larry.

In lieu of the expected chase at the end, there is the wild attempt to get to the club just before midnight to win all the side bets Fogg had placed on his 80-days deadline. Their arrival through a solid wall is a fitting ending to a film that just might induce youngsters to read the original book. A very respectable Three Stooges effort. --Frank Behrens

Customer Reviews

Good Film, Bad DVD
My favorite Three Stooges film of the 1960s features deserves much better.

Columbia's DVD presents THE THREE STOOGES GO AROUND THE WORLD IN A DAZE in its original widescreen format. But although it's advertised as "remastered," the visual quality leaves much to be desired... grainy overall, with several low contrast moments.

Even though no classic Curly or Shemp short subject is included as a bonus, they advertised the DVD to include trailers. BUT, they aren't Stooge trailers... just three trailers for other upcoming Columbia comedy discs.

Columbia dropped the retail price ... It wasn't enough. This DVD's presentation quality is not much better than some bargain basement pd vendors...

Message to Columbia & Sony: between the Stooges' great legacy, and the profitable property they've been to you for the past 70 years... the fans and the Stooges deserve better! Very disappointing DVD!!!

Highly recommended
Phileas Fogg III (great-grandson of the hero of Jules Verne's story) is a Englishman who likes his life run precisely on schedule, aided by his servants Moe, Larry and Curly-Joe. And then, just as he is beginning to feel that it is time to break the order, along comes a man who challenges him to go around the world in 80 days, but without using any of his own money. Phileas accepts the challenge and takes off, little realizing that he is a being used by a criminal mastermind, who has already framed him for a bank robbery, and now wants him dead. Can Phileas, aided by his three wacky servants survive...and win the bet? [Black and White, released in 1963, with a running time of 1 hour, 33 minutes.]

This movie was made when the Stooges were enjoying a later-in-life renaissance of popularity, and needed to make some money. (They didn't do well off of their shorts, but that's a different story.) The boys are older in this movie, and more subdued. ("Uh-uh, that's a 21. We don't do that anymore.") That said, though, it is great to see the boys in a full-length movie, up to their old hijinks. If you are a Three Stooges fan, then I highly recommend that you get this movie!

Not that bad, not that great
Though my expectations for any film from the DeRita era are slim to none, this film did a pretty solid job at holding my interest in spite of some boring scenes and the excess length. A modern adaptation of the Jules Verne classic 'Around the World in 80 Days,' the story starts in London and goes on to Turkey, India, China, Japan, California, Ontario, and finally full circle back to London. Along the way are a couple of scenes that are (in my opinion kind of pale) reworkings of earlier classic routines, such as the near-sighted Maharajah and playing "Pop Goes the Weasel" in the boxing ring. And while it does start out a bit slowly, after a promising early scene of the Stooges making Phileas Fogg III his breakfast and then getting him the steamer trunks for the journey, it does seem to get faster and better towards the end. A feature-length film starring slapstick comedians should be more consistently fast-paced, with a lot more comedy instead of concentrating on a rather involved plot. They just seem funnier in short subjects, when there's no time to waste with a complex plot and the funny stuff is packed in to the fullest extent. While I didn't really laugh at all, in spite of maybe a dozen amusing scenes and moments, there are some pretty good scenes in it, such as the sumo wrestling match, the high-speed drive through the streets of London near the end, the scene with the Chinese interrogators, and the big fight in the dark with the bad guys in London. It doesn't come anywhere close to matching their classic output from their golden era in the Thirties, Forties, and even early Fifties, but for one of their feature films, it is pretty decent, solid, and respectable considering it's from the DeRita era. I didn't hate or dislike it, but I didn't love it or even really like it either.