Hello Pop!

Hello Pop! is the third of five short films starring Ted Healy and His Stooges released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on September 16, 1933. A musical-comedy film, the film also featured the Albertina Rasch Dancers and Bonnie Bonnell (Healy's girlfriend at the time). The film was considered lost until a 35mm nitrate print was discovered in Australia in January 2013.[1] Stooges Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard were billed as "Howard, Fine and Howard."

Hello Pop!
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJack Cummings
Written byTed Healy
Matty Brooks
Moe Howard
StarringTed Healy
Bonnie Bonnell
Moe Howard
Larry Fine
Curly Howard
Albertina Rasch Dancers
Henry Armetta
Edward Brophy
Tiny Sandford
Rosetta Duncan
Vivian Duncan
Music byIrving Berlin (song: "I’m Sailing on a Sunbeam")
Ballard MacDonald
Dimitri Tiomkin
Al Goodhart
Dave Dreyer
Color processTwo-strip Technicolor
Distributed byMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date
  • September 16, 1933 (1933-09-16)
Running time
16:23
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Plot

A theater producer (Healy) is trying to stage an elaborate musical revue. His efforts are constantly interrupted by demanding back stage personalities: a flaky musician (Henry Armetta), a woman who keeps try to ask him something (Bonnie Bonnell), and his raucous sons (the Stooges in children's costumes).

He 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.[2]

Cast

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 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.[3]

Hello Pop! was the second of two MGM Stooges shorts filmed in the two-color Technicolor process. (Nertsery Rhymes, the act’s first film for MGM, was also shot in color.). The use of color was predicated on the decision to build plot devices in Hello Pop! around the following discarded Technicolor musical numbers from earlier MGM films:

Preservation status

In the 1930s, studios were offered their two-color negatives by Technicolor, who was at that time storing them. Most studios declined the offer, the camera negatives were junked, and original release prints usually disposed of shortly after a theatrical run. A print existed in MGM's Vault #7, but was destroyed by a fire in 1965.[1]

In January 2013, it was announced that Hello Pop! had been located in an Australian private film collection and was in the process of being restored for public viewing.[1] The film was screened at Film Forum in New York City on September 30, 2013.[5]

Home media

Warner Archive released Hello Pop! on September 24, 2014 on DVD in region 1 as part of the Classic Shorts From The Dream Factory series, Volume 3 DVD set (featuring Howard, Fine and Howard). The film was released with five other Ted Healy and the Stooges shorts made for MGM, Plane Nuts (1933), Roast Beef and Movies (1934), Beer and Pretzels (1933), Nertsery Rhymes (1933), and The Big Idea (1934).[6]

See also

References
  1. Three Stooges film found in Australian garden shed Sydney Morning Herald , September 29, 2013. Retrieved October 1, 2013
  2. Jeff Lenburg, Joan Howard Maurer, and Greg Lenburg, The Three Stooges Scrapbook Page 226, Citadel Press ISBN 0-8065-0946-5
  3. Moe Howard, Moe Howard and The 3 Stooges Page 64. Citadel Press. ISBN 0-8065-0723-3
  4. Hello Pop! at threestooges.com
  5. Three Stooges film discovered in garden shed The Guardian, September 30, 2013. Retrieved September 30, 2013.
  6. "New York Post", September 30, 2014. Retrieved October 13, 2014.
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