Hello Pop!

Poster art
Directed by Jack Cummings
Starring The Three Stooges
Ted Healy
Bonnie Bonnell
Music by Irving Berlin (song: “I’m Sitting on a Sunbeam”)
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s) September 16, 1933 (USA)
Running time 17 minutes
Country United States of America
IMDb profile

Hello Pop! (1933) was a musical-comedy short starring the Three Stooges (Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard) and Ted Healy. The film was directed by Jack Cummings and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) on September 16 1933. It is now considered a lost film.

Contents

Plot

Ted Healy is a producer trying to stage an elaborate musical revue. His efforts are constantly interrupted by demanding back stage personalities: a flaky musician (Henry Armetta), a less-than-cooperative girl friend (Bonnie Bonnell), and a trio of raucous friends (The Three Stooges). Ted is able to get the show ready for presentation, but during the main number the Three Stooges slip beneath the enormous hoopskirt costume worn by the leading vocalist. They emerge on stage during the performance, ruining the show.[1]

Production

Originally planned under the title “Back Stage,” Hello Pop! was the third of five short films made by MGM featuring the vaudeville act billed as “Ted Healy and His Stooges.” (The knockabout trio began calling themselves “The Three Stooges” after they broke up with Healy in 1934). The act focused primarily on Healy’s wit and caustic commentary, with the Stooges receiving the brunt of the physical slapstick. For the MGM short films, actress Bonnie Bonnell was incorporated into the configuration as Healy’s love interest.[2]

The film was shot in the two-strip Technicolor process. This was the second time color was used for the “Ted Healy and His Stooges” shorts (Nertsery Rhymes, the act’s first film for MGM, was also shot in color). The use of color was predicated by the decision to recycle two numbers from earlier Technicolor-lensed MGM films into the Hello Pop! musical sequences: the Irving Berlin song “I'm Sitting on a Sunbeam,” which was performed in the 1929 production “It’s a Great Life,” and the “Moon Ballet” sequence from the unreleased 1930 feature “March of Time.”[3]

Lost film status

The two-strip Technicolor film was highly unstable and deteriorated very quickly if it was not properly stored. As a result, many Technicolor films from the late 1920s and early 1930s are either considered lost or only exist in fragments. MGM does not possess a copy of this title, and no prints or negatives of Hello Pop! are known to exist in any private collection or film archive.[4]

References

  1. ^ Lenburg, Jeff, Maurer, Joan Howard, and Lenburg, Greg, "The Three Stooges Scrapbook." Page 226. Citadel Press. ISBN: 0-8065-0946-5]
  2. ^ Howard, Moe, "Moe Howard and The 3 Stooges." Page 64. Citadel Press. ISBN:0-8065-0723-3
  3. ^ The Three Stooges Journal
  4. ^ Film Threat's Top 10 Lost Films, Part Five

External links

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