The film is often recognized as Hollywood's inaugural anti-Nazi comedy, predating Charles Chaplin's The Great Dictator by several months, despite commencing production afterward.
Plot
Three munitions manufacturers, discontent with reduced profits due to King Herman the 6+7⁄8's pacifist policies, conspire to overthrow him and institute a dictatorship. The trio selects the unwitting Stooges acting as wallpaper hangers as figureheads for their regime. Moe assumes the role of the leader, drawing parallels to Adolf Hitler, while Curly and Larry are assigned positions mirroring a hybrid of Benito Mussolini and Hermann Göring as well as Joseph Goebbels, respectively.
Upon seizing power, the Stooges — under the guise of Hailstone, Gallstone, and Pebble — attempt to govern Moronika. However, their incompetence and absurdity quickly unravel their authority. A subplot emerges with the arrival of Mattie Herring, who is suspected of espionage by the Stooges and subsequently sentenced to execution. Her escape further complicates the chaotic governance of Moronika.
Amidst the farcical political maneuvering, the Stooges attempt to navigate international diplomacy, depicted through a round-table meeting where absurd demands are made of neighboring countries. The escalation of tensions culminates in a confrontation with a mob led by the deposed king and Mattie Herring. Faced with imminent downfall, the Stooges flee, only to meet an ironic end as they unwittingly enter a lion's den and are devoured offscreen.
Significance
You Nazty Spy! 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 Internet Movie Database, You Nazty Spy! was the first Hollywood film to spoof Hitler.[1] It was released nine months before the Charlie Chaplin film The Great Dictator, which began filming in September 1939. You Nazty Spy! was filmed on December 5–9, 1939.[2]
The Hays code discouraged or prohibited many types of political and satirical messages in feature films, requiring that the history and prominent people of other countries must be portrayed "fairly". Short films such as those released by the Stooges were subject to less attention than feature films.[3]
Moe Howard, as "Moe Hailstone", became the first American actor to portray/imitate Adolf Hitler in a released film, although Chaplin's portrayal was shot before the Stooges' film went into production.[5]
Both Moe Howard and Larry Fine cited You Nazty Spy! as their favorite Three Stooges short.[6]
Larry uses the alias 'Moronica' while disguised as a woman in Higher Than a Kite (1943).
The parody of the Nazi banner with two snakes in the form of a swastika is captioned with the phrase "Moronika for Morons" which is a play on the Nazi slogan "Deutschland den Deutschen" (Germany for Germans).[7]
The Stooges—all Ashkenazi Jews—occasionally worked a word or phrase of Yiddish into their dialogue. In particular here, the Stooges make several overt Jewish and Yiddish cultural references:
The exclamation "Beblach!" used several times in the film is a Yiddish word meaning "beans".[7]
"Shalom aleichem!", literally "Peace unto you" is a standard Hebrew greeting meaning "hello, pleased to meet you".[7]
In Moe's imitation of a Hitler speech, he says "in pupik gehabt haben" (the semi-obscene "I've had it in the bellybutton" in Yiddish). These references to the Nazi leadership and Hitler speaking Yiddish were particularly ironic inside jokes for the Yiddish-speaking Jewish audience.[6] This anticipates the mock German that Charlie Chaplin would use in his dictator role in the soon to be released The Great Dictator, which the producers of this film were likely aware of.
In a gag when Moe tries to shush Larry and Curly at a table with Mattie Herring, the boys make train noises until a conductor appears and says, "All out for Syracuse!" When Larry leaves and Mattie Herring asks where he is going, Moe replies, "The boy's from Syracuse" — a reference to the musical The Boys from Syracuse (1938).
A colorized version of this film was released in 2004. It was part of the DVD collection entitled Stooged & Confoosed.[8]
You Nazty Spy was also the first Stooges short to bear a new opening title sequence, with the Columbia logo's torch-bearing woman on the left-hand corner, standing on a pedestal where each step has printed out "Columbia," "Short Subject" and "Presentation," and the opening titles and credits are inside a box with rounded edges. This format will remain in effect through Booby Dupes.[7]
When asked why they have no lions, Curly replies "Because there are no bones in ice cream." This bizarre and otherwise unexplained non-sequitur is a colloquialism of the period that would be offered as a non-sensical answer to a non-sensical question.
Two of the lions at the end of the film are known as former MGM lions, "Tanner and Jackie", both of whom had previously appeared in Three Missing Links, Wee Wee Monsieur, and Movie Maniacs. The name of the third lion is unknown.
^ abLenburg, Jeff; Maurer, Joan Howard; Lenburg, Greg (1994). The Three Stooges scrapbook. New York: Citadel Press. ISBN0-8065-0946-5.
^ abcdeSolomon, Jon (2002). The Complete Three Stooges: The Official Filmography and Three Stooges Companion. Comedy III Productions, Inc. ISBN0-9711868-0-4.
^The Three Stooges (2004). Stooged & Confoosed (DVD). Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. ASINB0002A2WG8. OCLC56190384.
