You Nazty Spy! (1940)

Starring: The Three Stooges (Moe, Larry, and Curly)
Grade: Classic

If you wanted to see diplomacy handled by the Three Stooges, You Nazty Spy! is for you.

Summary

“Any resemblance between the characters in this picture and any persons, living or dead, is a miracle”.

Three industrialists discuss business being at a standstill. Mr. Ohnay (Dick Curtis) tells Mr. Ixnay (Richard Fixe) that their munitions factories “only” sold $5 million profit for the first quarter of the year (“Only $5 million? Well, we’re practically starving!”). Mr. Amscray (Don Beddoe) points out that the Kingdom of Moronica is at peace. Ixnay knows, but he argues how there is no money in peace. He is adamant they start a war. Ohnay agrees. If the king wants only peace, Ohnay suggests they oust him and appoint a dictator. They need someone stupid enough to do what they tell him. Ixnay realizes he has the perfect candidate in his own house. His name is Moe Hailstone (Moe).

Hailstone and his two helpers Curly Gallstone (Curly) and Larry Pebble (Larry) are wall papering Ixnay’s dining room.

Ixnay, Ohnay, and Amscray go to the dining room, and Ixnay introduces Hailstone, Gallstone, and Pebble to them. Ixnay says he is about to give them the greatest opportunity of their lives. Hailstone asks if this means they can wallpaper the living room but Ixnay says they are through with papering. Along with his partners, he is going to make Hailstone dictator of Moronica. Hailstone doesn’t know what a dictator does, so Ixnay talks about how he will make love to beautiful women, drink champagne, enjoy life, never work, and makes speeches to the people. He will promise the people plenty but give them nothing and take everything. Gallstone refers to this as a “parasite” and says this is for him. After Hailstone quiets Gallstone, he tells everyone to be quiet so he can think. He backs up against the table in the room and his finger lands in a piece of black tape. Hailstone doesn’t notice it and covers his mouth as he ponders. As he does so, the piece of tape lands under his nose and it looks like Adolph Hitler’s mustache. Hailstone decides to take the job, but he doesn’t want it without his two pals coming along. Their motto has always been “One for all and all for me!”. The three shake on it twice (“Beblach”). When they go for a third time, Gallstone is left out, and he pouts while he walks towards the life-size statue of a man. He ends up shaking the hand of the statue because the statue comes alive. It’s not until after Gallstone shakes it that he realizes how freaky this was, rushing back over to everyone else in the room. He bumps into Hailstone who slaps his hat off. Finally, Ixnay says he won’t break up their triumvirate. He will make Gallstone the Field Marshal and head of Moronica’s fighting forces. Immediately, Gallstone asks if he can have a uniform and a real sword. Amscray tells Gallstone he can have 100 uniforms. He just needs to go out and kill 100 generals and to help himself. Excited as can be, Gallstone says he will kill 200 generals while mimicking a machine gun by pointing out his two fingers and bouncing his hat off his head to make the noise of the gun. Hailstone stops his fingers and pokes him in the eye with them.

Next, Ixnay says they will make Pebble the Minister of Propaganda. Pebble asks what this even is, prompting Gallstone to respond, “A papa-ganda marries a mama-ganda and they raise a lot of little goslings”. Gallstone starts making duck noises until Hailstone chokes him. Moving on, Hailstone tells Ixnay they will take the job and asks what they have to do. Ixnay states they are to start a Beer Porch. Pebble asks how, so Gallstone jokes that he has to put his beer down and wait for the pretzels. Ixnay explains they are to go to all the saloons and buy free beer for everyone. Then, they lead all the people in a march to the palace to force the king to abdicate. That will make Hailstone dictator (“Hail, hail, Hailstone! Wa-HOO!”). Sometime later, Hailstone is the dictator of Moronica and is doing a public speech on the balcony of the palace with Gallstone and Pebble by his side. There are thousands of citizens outside watching. Hailstone talks about how they need to throw off the “yolk of monarchy and make our country safe for hypocrisy!”. As soon as Hailstone finishes his point, Pebble holds up a sign that says “Cheers” and the crowd follows suit. They immediately stop cheering when Pebble puts the sign down. Hailstone pulls out a cologne called “Fleur de Skunk”, and Gallstone takes off his hat to offer his head to Hailstone. Hailstone sprays it on Gallstone and rubs it into his scalp. Pebble gets Hailstone’s attention and points to his own head because he wants it too, but Hailstone responds by striking him on the top of the head. Moving on, Hailstone excitedly tells the crowd how their motto will be, “Moronica for morons!”. Pebble holds up the sign that says “Applause”, and they do so. Hailstone continues with how they will have less work and more play, and every Thursday they will receive a hamburger and eggs. Since the crowd isn’t responding, Hailstone hits Pebble to signal him to hold up a sign. Pebble does, but it’s the wrong one. It says “Hiss”, and the crowd hisses to Hailstone’s confusion and angry.

Hailstone turns and sees Pebble’s sign and kicks him in the ass to make Pebble realize his mistake. With this, he turns the sign over and it says “Cheers”. Instantly, the crowd begins cheering.

Moving on, Hailstone states that Moronica must expand. They must extend their neighbors a helping hand and even two helping hands. Plus, they will help themselves to their neighbors. After the three shake hands, Hailstone goes on a Hitler-ish rant of German-sounding gibberish. He starts yelling “Yah!”, and Gallstone and Pebble say it back. Pebble throws in a hallelujah after they all chant “Yah man!”, and Hailstone hits Pebble.

Gallstone takes the microphone for a moment to pause for station identification and comments their station is “N-U-T-S”. Pebble adds in that when they hear the “conk on the dome, it will be 3 O’clock Bolognia watch time”. With this, Pebble hits Gallstone over the head with a hammer, so they all reiterate that it’s 3 O’clock Bolognia watch time. They all laugh maniacally. Inside the palace where their flag is shown to be a swastika made up of two snakes, Gallstone uses a shaker cup to make drinks for them. As he shakes it, he does a little dance in-between pauses, though he stops when Hailstone shoots him an angry glance. Gallstone pours shots for the three of them, and they toast, with Gallstone drinking straight from the shaker cup. Right after, Hailstone tells Pebble to ring for his secretary but pronounces it “sectry”. Pebble corrects him, and they argue over it until Hailstone asks Gallstone who is correct. Gallstone says it’s “stenographer”, grabs his drink, and walks away from the two to ring for her. Pebble is still confident he’s right, so Hailstone responds by squeezing his nose with pliers. He tells Pebble to hold it, and he does while he walks away in pain. Hailstone storms over to Gallstone because he sees him reading a book. He is angered because Gallstone might learn something. Hailstone reminds him that loyal Moronicans shouldn’t read. He orders Gallstone to take his troops out and burn every book in Moronica. Standing up, Gallstone mentions his Little Red Book and how he doesn’t want this to be included. It’s a book with women he associates with. It has their names, addresses, and little notes next to each one (“Has car – often runs out of gas! – Woo Woo Woo!”). Hailstone decides to keep the book for himself.Gallstone accuses him of being a bookkeeper, but Hailstone reiterates for him to burn the books. Pebble questions why he wants this book burning to happen, and Hailstone says there are too many bookmakers and bookies are overrunning the country. Those are his orders.

The secretary calls to let Hailstone know Mattie Herring (Lorna Gray) is there to see him. Hailstone tells her to “marinate her and send her in”. After the secretary hangs up, she looks around to make sure the coast is clear and unzips her dress to wear the one under it. It was a disguise. The secretary is Mattie Herring. Meanwhile, the bellboy (“Little Billy” Rhodes) walks in with a peasant citizen (Joe Murphy) and tells his Excellency in Hailstone that he caught the peasant committing treason. He caught the man walking down the street with a chicken. Gallstone jokingly asks if it was a blonde or brunette, but Hailstone quiets him. Hailstone demands to know where the peasant got the chicken. He responds that it was from an egg. Pebble asks where he got the egg, so the peasant says it was from a chicken. Gallstone sees how this is a vicious cycle and deduces they must kill it. He then asks Hailstone to remind him to kill a cycle. Hailstone quiets him again and tells the bellboy to put the peasant in a concentrated camp. After the bellboy takes him away, Hailstone decides against this. Instead, he wants the peasant to be thrown to the lions. Gallstone reveals that they don’t have lions and suggests the Tigers or the Cubs. Pebbles brings up the Giants. Hailstone demands to know why they don’t have lions, and Gallstone replies that it’s because there are no bones in ice cream. Hailstone gets frustrated and becomes emotional about how he can’t throw anyone to the lions if they don’t have any. Gallstone promises they will get him lions to make him feel better and starts making animals noises to his face to shake him out of it. Pebbles tells him the lions will have huge claws and scratches Hailstone’s face as he says it. Gallstone adds how they will have big teeth that bite, and he proceeds to bite Hailstone’s hand to show him. Agitated, Hailstone hits them both in the stomach and the head at the same time.

Just then, Mattie Herring walks into the office and disrupts the three with her presence. Her underlying plan to unseat Hailstone might be easier than expected with how moronic the dictator and his cabinet are.

My Thoughts:

Though there is an overabundance of Three Stooges shorts that could be considered among the group’s best work, the fan favorite You Nazty Spy! and its sequel I’ll Never Heil Again should be somewhere on everyone’s list.

During a turbulent period in world history, The Three Stooges were the first group to lampoon the planet’s most evil man and do so in hilarious fashion, with Moe arguably at his best. Even if the opportunity of satirizing Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany wasn’t an option in a parallel universe, the idea of letting Moe, Larry, and Curly run a country into the ground as the nation’s leaders would be enough to sell audiences on wanting to see it. However, the golden opportunity to take down Hitler in the process was too sweet to pass up. Going into production after Charlie Chaplin’s similar feature The Great Dictator was shot but not yet released to the public, the Stooges were able to get their short out first and made history in doing so, with Moe Howard being able to say he was the first American actor to portray or imitate Hitler onscreen. It was brave in a lot of ways, as the United States was still neutral at the time and the general public favored staying out of World War II. At the same time, the Hays Code prevented major Hollywood productions from including political messages in film. Thankfully, shorts were not subjected to the same attention, and this allowed for the Stooges to put together one of the best shorts of their prolific careers, along with being Moe and Larry Fine’s personal favorite. In a creative move to keep things Stoogey rather than being overly political, the plot of You Nazty Spy! takes place in the fictional country of Moronica, the perfect name for a backwards country that will put the Stooges in charge purposely, so the real powers that be can run things behind the scenes. Getting the most out of its 18-minute length, they establish how there is a powerful triumvirate of industrialists that basically run the country behind the scenes with their corporations, a plot point and commentary still relevant today. Since they’re “only” making single digit millions, they are unhappy with their profit margin, with the ironic line from Ixnay about them practically “starving” not being lost on us.

Adhering to the well-known fact that has been taught to generations of kids in history classes all over the country that war tends to equal profit, these three Pig Latin-named CEOs decide they need Moronica to start a war so they can benefit from it. All they need is a dictator put in place over the peaceful King Herman of the 6 and 7/8s, a character who isn’t seen onscreen until the short’s sequel, I’ll Never Heil Again. If they pick the perfect puppet leader and distract him with the benefits of being dictator like making love to beautiful women and never working, they can tell him what to do. Of all the Three Stooges shorts, one could argue that this is the best premise of them all. It was so good that it is the only Stooge short to get a sequel. Plus, elements of it are referenced in two other shorts like Dizzy Pilots and Higher Than a Kite. They probably didn’t expect for it to be such a hit either, considering the ending resulting in the trio being torn to shreds by lions. It’s why this short and I’ll Never Heil Again don’t line up as a continuation of the story narrative-wise, along with the fact that a different daughter character of Herman is used, which is a shame because the better one was Lorna Gray’s Mattie Herring. Even so, the country-ruining trio dying at the end of both shorts is still two of the greatest and most memorable endings of any Stooge short ever. My only gripe with the short is that this could have been something bigger, a full-length feature long before the Stooges began making them in the 1960s. There was a strong enough basis with Moe Hailstone and company for this to be an expanded story similar to Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. That is how entertaining and creative this short and its sequel is and how well they handle two simple, 18-minute comedies. Had they combined the two and then added more story to create a full-blown movie, it had enough in its foundation to be the best Three Stooges production ever made.

Granted, both shorts are already in the discussion with what they have, but watching it in hindsight makes us fans think about how much better something like an extended feature on Hailstone’s reign over Moronica would be compared to the middling affairs of Have Rocket, Will Travel, The Three Stooges Meet Hercules, The Three Stooges in Orbit, and the many others in their later years.

The whole concept of Hailstone, Gallstone, and Pebble running this country of Moronica and wanting to expand and take over the continent of South Starvania and it’s many countries and bodies of land like Hangover, Aspirin, Razzle Lake, Dazzle Lake, Bolonia, Look Sea, Sea of Biscuit, and the Bay of Rum among other places, is such a fun idea. The filmmakers clearly thought so too, as evidenced by the amount of dead space in the map scene, which allows for the viewer to appreciate the creativity involved in the creation of the fictional continent, even if they aren’t all laugh-inducing. Then again, it’s not nearly as long as when it’s done in I’ll Never Heil Again. Outside of the signature slapstick, the humor of the short is due to the audience already knowing who runs the country behind the scenes. The only reason Hailstone gets the job is because the numbskull can be manipulated. However, as it happens with most dictators, the power goes to Hailstone’s head, and it’s highly entertaining watching him flip out on Gallstone and Pebble, making crazy demands, and causing chaos because of his vision of what is authentically Moronican. He demands to have a book burning because real Moronicans don’t read, though staying true to his word of the nation being a safe space for hypocrisy, he takes Gallstone’s Little Red Book of women’s names and addresses for himself. The three demand peace collectively but don’t have it with each other, arguing over the pronunciation of words and the hand of the ballerina secretary and spy Mattie Herring. Naturally, they don’t know she’s a spy, but they are all over her as soon as she walks in the room, and Hailstone comically slaps Gallstone for kissing her and does so to Pebble to after the best exchange in the short:

Larry: “As Minister of Propaganda, I-“

Moe: “- Don’t wanna hear from you!”

*slap*

The timing and delivery could not have been better executed.

Funnily enough, it’s enough for Pebble to ask Gallstone what’s the matter with Hailstone, as if Moe is handing out more violence than his usual. After Gallstone mentions how Hailstone woke up on the wrong side of the gutter this morning, he tells Pebble “I’m gonna take him up on the roof and overthrow him”. Later, when Mattie tells them that Hailstone doesn’t have long to live once she looks through her 8Ball, Gallstone adds “Oh goody!” and shakes hands with Pebble. Both are great lines, but it just adds fuel to the imagination at how hysterical a full-length movie could have been with these three in these specific roles. Watching each Stooge backstab one another and wanting to be the leader due to their increasingly dumb arguments about how to run the country correctly could have been comedic gold. Then again, it’s funny how they become a collective front when faced against outside forces, despite their infighting. This is seen in the third act as the Stooges demand peace but refuse to listen to any of the delegates at their round table discussion, with Hailstone even hitting the Minister of Oomphola with his cane and having Gallstone hit the other delegate twice (“Your minorities are creeping into our majorities until you’re making our majorities minorities.”). Following Hailstone’s demands for a corridor through the aptly named Double Crossia as an outlet into the Bay of Window, it turns into a huge argument. Pebble stays with Hailstone and assures the other delegates Hailstone is trying his best while Gallstone appeases them by hitting golf balls at their heads (“I just love appeasing!”). Even if the climax of I’ll Never Heil Again is superior in terms of the Stooges trying to discuss the future with the delegates, there’s not much better than the hard-headed delegate getting hit twice in the head with the golf ball, Pebble catching it to tell him he’s out, and Gallstone laughing from across the room. They do milk the golf violence a little too much, but it’s classic Stooge humor. Larry’s trick punch has also stayed rent-free in my head for a lifetime. As simple as it may look, directing attention to one fist and even saying “You see this?” and then hitting with the other fist is certifiably genius.

The ironic transition of Hailstone proudly declaring, “Now that’s what I call a peace conference! At last things are beginning to come our way!” before an offscreen Herman, Herring, and a million Moronican citizens start hurling bricks through the windows to force Hailstone to abdicate was just perfect. Knowing that the Three Stooges did that much damage in such a short timespan as leaders makes us laugh even more.

On a side note, Moe having Larry grab Curly by the ear, and then Moe grabbing Larry by the ear, so all three can walk offscreen together, is a transition that needs to come back in modern film as soon as possible.

One strange element to this short and its sequel is that the female character inserted into the plot to distract the guys always walks in with an off-the-wall strategy. Here, Herring’s job isn’t known. They just let her in without knowing much about her, and she’s there with a “Magic” 8Ball to help Hailstone figure out what’s on the horizon for him. In the sequel, Hailstone deals with a female “astrologer”, and she does virtually the same thing. It’s a weird wrinkle in the story to foreshadow things, though it’s arguably done better in the sequel. With this short, it’s used mainly for Moe and Curly to play with each other’s hands under the table because they both think it’s Herring’s. This of course leads to Hailstone breaking the 8Ball over Gallstone’s head and they find the note where it’s revealed that Herring is the daughter of King Herman and was going to be made Queen of the May if she poisoned Hailstone (“P.S., there’s a sale on poison at the Cutthroat Drugstore at 6 and 7/8s”). Besides the Stooges being shushed and turning it into all three of them making train noises (“All out for Syracuse!”), we will concede that it was funny seeing Herring call for the 8Ball with her magic words and it dropped from the ceiling inexplicably. Moe, Larry, and Curly looking up and selling the confusion of how she did this is exactly the type of madness we expect in a short starring the legendary team.

Along with Gallstone arguing that he can shoot Herring with dice because they’re loaded, the stormtroopers taking their orders and doing absolutely nothing with them other than goosestep hard enough to kick each other in the ass was arguably the best gag in the short. Furthermore, Gallstone managing to be outsmarted in what was to be a simple shooting of the traitorous spy because he insists on being blindfolded is the most “Curly” thing he could have done (“You shot me in the excitement you fool!”). Not one to be outdone, Pebble has a hilariously underrated line when Hailstone talks about how he almost considered marrying Herring, as he replies, “Yeah, you would have been in some pickle with that herring”. Hailstone punctuates it with a fantastic reaction. The joke of Pebble saying he better be Russian if he takes Mickey Finlen, prompting Gallstone to quit stalling (Stalin) was solid pun-work for those that appreciate this sort of thing, but the real gem was the Round Table gag. Pebble looks legitimately concerned about having a Round Table Conference with a square table, but Hailstone declares nothing is square in Moronica and they have to cut corners. Of course, he’s dead serious and hands Pebble a saw to get to work. Though I’m still not really sure why the second secretary was a ballerina, Hailstone and Gallstone dancing together will always be funny (“I bet you tell that to all the boys!”).

You Nazty Spy! holds a special place in a lot of our hearts, as the Three Stooges’ take on World War II was equally an all-time short from the legendary comedic team, a great satire, and a triumph for comedy as a whole, as the trio stood in the face of tyranny and poked fun at the living maniacs who were running whole countries at the time. With all of this being said, its sequel is even better.