The Three Stooges: Hollywood Filming Locations

Love it. Tons of pictures and information about all the filming locations. After watching the shorts obsessively for years its exciting to view them from a whole new perspective. I am starting to stare into the backgrounds while watching the shorts after reading this book. Interesting. I am starting to pickup on who is who. The book gives lots of cast member names that I can research further. It is fun to know the history, lives, successes, and struggles behind the cast members I have been watching so long. The book gives a view into the world of what it would have been like to go to work with the stooges. What their day would have been like and what they were seeing at work. Most of the locations are right next to each other which some may find boring. To me that just makes the whole thing easier to understand and visualize. I will even be able to memorize the location names and history behind them. I highly recommend the book to the right people.Another great book I got recently was "I Stooged to Conquer". I have tons of stooges books but these two are my favorites. Moe writes in such great detail in that book you get to know the whole story so much better. Every other book will summarize of course but Moe takes his time.

I like to watch shows like the three Stooges and Highway Patrol etc. while trying to find out where they were filmed. Then this book came along and did it for me. I grew up in West L.A. and know most of the L.A. area. This book has before and after shots of many shooting locations. In one shot I see a ranch in the background. The book said it is now the Forest Lawn in N. Hollywood where my Mother, Grandmother and Grandfather, along with many celebrities have their final resting places.

There have been a slate of Hollywood location books out over the last few years, and all of them have been great additions to any film buff's library. "The Three Stooges Hollywood Filming Locations" is no different. The sheer number of photos, frame grabs, and behind-the-scenes shots, many of which have never been seen before (at least not by me), make the book worth the money. Unlike John Bengtson in his terrific books on the locations for the films of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd, author Jim Pauley only occasionally touches on the personal quest angle, describing the detective work it took to find a particular location, but that's okay. And there are occasional gloss-overs of information; for instance, while Pauley makes mention of the fact that the public fountain the Stooges and their dance teacher dive into in 1935's "Hoi Poloi" supports a statue, and even names the sculptor, he fails to mention the statue itself is famous, being dedicated to Rudolph Valentino. It's trivial, to be sure, but what could be a more bizarre confluence of Hollywood history than the sight of the Stooges dripping wet in front of a naked bronze butt representing Valentino? But Pauley can be forgiven for that too, in return for revealing that the body of water featured in 1936's "Whoops, I'm an Indian!" is also Sheriff's Andy and Opie's fishin' hole in the credits of "The Andy Griffith Show," and that the racetrack prominently featured in 1937's "Playing the Ponies" was located on land that is now Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills! If there is a problem with the book, it is that it there is a certain amount of repetition due to the fact that so many Stooge shorts were shot at the Columbia Ranch in Burbank (now the Warner Bros. Ranch and still in use), which served as the backlot for Columbia Studios from the 1930s through the television era. But that is not the author's fault, and he has actually done a superb job of describing how the backlot--which featured city, country, and Western streets--was used. This book will be fascinating not only for Stooge fans, but also for anyone interested in how filmmakers of the Golden Age, even (or especially) low-budget filmmakers, used ingenuity in creating a multitude of environments out of a fairly small patch of ground.

I attended the Alex Film Society's annual Three Stooges screenings this past November. Author Jim Pauley was the guest speaker and spoke about his soon to be released book THE THREE STOOGES HOLLYWOOD FILMING LOCATIONS. Clips from the Stooge shorts that were about to be shown were compared with the actual film sites as they appear today. Pauley certainly did a remarkable amount of research on locations that in many occasions were shown briefly in a Stooge short. Pauley's passion for the Stooges was evident and I looked forward to buying his book, though my immediate thought was he spent years on a book that would appeal to a small audience.Sadly, the genius of the Stooges is being lost in the modern era and Stooge shorts are not longer shown on "regular" TV. Most people under 40 probably know very little about our beloved Stooges, so it did seem like Pauley could have spent years of research on something more commercially viable like Hollywood filming locations for famous TV shows and movies well known to the current generation. Of course, that has been done before and there are countless tour companies in Hollywood that will take you to famous film locations.Probably one of the most memorable Stooge fan shorts is AN ACHE IN EVERY STAKE. The boys, yes, they are always "the boys," are working as ice salesmen back in an era when people had "iceboxes" instead of refrigerators. Anyone who has seen the short, won't forget it. This one is a real Stooge classic. From the top of a huge flight of stairs, a lady calls for 10 cents worth of ice. By the time Curly climbs the stairs on a hot day, the block of ice is nothing but a a small ice cube. Attempt after attempt is made to get that ice to the top of the stairs intact. Those stairs inspired Pauley to do his research and find that location and others. I do plan to find the stairs, thanks to Pauley, and be a stooge. It was this short that inspired Pauley to track down these memorable stairs. There has always been debate if these were the same flight of stars used in a Laurel & Hardy film involving a delivery of a piano.Pauley proved Laurel and Hardy and the Three Stooges stairs were different.Two friends and I who also attended the screening look through the book yesterday and we all agreed that the subject matter would have limited appeal. Nice book but how many people would want to pay $39.95 (Amazon's price is much lower) for a book about locations that may only be on screen for a few seconds? Today I looked through the book more closely and its beauty to a Three Stooges film fan was clear to me. It's not so much a guidebook to track down locations but rather an homage to the Stooges and their genius. There is just page after page of wonderful pictures of the Stooges at work. Yes, there are some maps and addresses at the end of the book, but the locations are less important than the Stooges. There is a delightful picture of a young and unknown Lucille Ball with Larry from THREE LITTLE PIGSKINS. Here we learn that the football game was played in Gilmore Stadium which now the location of CBS TELEVISION CITY. As someone who lives in Los Angeles, I found the trivia on the locations to be especially interest. And Pauley does give us plenty of trivia and facts on the Three Stooges and their shorts. There is a synopsis of each short featured and background information on the location.After taking the time to look at this book, I find I really like it. Although I still would say the book appears to limited audience of very dedicated Three Stooges fans, there is a lot learn from this book. We have the chance to see vintage photos of the stooges a long with pictures of Los Angeles from the 1930's and 1940's. This book is definitely a keeper for a Stooge fan.

A true delight. Each short filmed by the Stooges is presented with screen captures or actual behind the scenes photos -- and there are hundreds! Seeing the actual locations recently captured on film and now and comparing them to the shorts is priceless. Great old Hollywood street scenes from the '30s and '40s are a treasure.The studio shots of the different streets is also a highlight. (I keep wishing they had the MGM sets used for THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E., but their NY street set is pretty good!)At this price, if you are a Stooges fan, you CANNOT go wrong.Highly recommended.

I saw this book on a specialty old movie channel but they wanted $40 for it. Amazon shipped it super fast and I'm real happy to have it. Details-galore. Photos that you'll never see anywhere else; and hundreds of them! A real pleasure.Thanks Mr Pauley and Amazon for the book.

The before and after photos of the sets and places where film skits were made is what makes this book most unique and fascinating. I love it. The only downside is there is no general index map of the filming location maps.

Beautiful book. Amazing pictures that we haven't seen before. Great stories. Makes us want to take a trip to LA and follow along!