Stevecorp
Don't listen to the negative reviews
AnhartLinkin
This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.
Roman Sampson
One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
"Woman Haters" is a 19-minute black-and-white sound short film from 1934, so this one is already way over 80 years old and to put in in perspective, Hitler was fresh in the office in Germany when this came out. It is a Stooges short film and many consider it the very first officially. If you have seen other works from the trio, you will see that many aspects are still different. One example would be the rhyming that quickly disappeared from Stooges works and lots of the comedy in here is based on verbal jokes and the physical jokes are not that common yet. However, when they appear, they pretty much look exactly like they do later on in the works. Also unusual is that Larry is the protagonist pretty much and that Curly (known as Curley here) is the Stooge with probably the least impact and least significant material, something that changed quickly too. And of course, the Stooges here play characters with other than their real names, which is also a rare occurrence. But the music in here is one aspect that they returned to many times in the future. A great quantity of Stooges short films have music parts in them. Larry was for example a gifted violinist. But enough of the general stuff and lets take a look at the story here. Feminists may probably call it misogynist that there is a woman haters club in here, but honestly, they really made up for it by showing respect for women on several occasions. With "they", I am referring to Archie and Jerome S. Gottler (father and son) who are almost entirely forgotten today and also not known for their work with the Stooges anymore. The female main character is played by the ill-fated Marjorie White in her final career performance and also in the cast is Walter Brennan a couple years before becoming Hollywood's most successful supporting actor ever if we go by Academy Award wins. About this film itself here, the Stooges were not yet at their best and while I can see that this film is pretty famous because of being the first, it's not necessarily deserving of the attention. i give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.
JoeKarlosi
Here is the very first of nearly two hundred Columbia two-reel Three Stooges short subjects which Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curley Howard made on their own, without their unfunny old straight man, Ted Healy. The results are pretty good but mixed, depending on how you approach it. For those who are not prepared, you may be taken aback by the style here: it is a musical comedy, where occasionally we'll get a Stooge or two break out into song, and every line of dialogue is spoken in rhyme. The plot line is that Moe, Larry and Curley join a misogynistic organization called "The Woman Haters", and vow not to have anything to do with females. Trouble begins to arise, however, when a woman takes after Larry and then starts to set her sights on the other Stooges as well. Not for everyone, and it's not indicative of their latter films, but taken with an open mind it's not a bad piece of work for a debut line of shorts. **1/2 out of ****
bkoganbing
The Three Stooges made their Columbia Pictures debut with this short involving the boys joining a Woman Haters club. Where apparently it's some kind of a rule to constantly sing in rhyme. Without apparently any reason.I'm not sure how Moe, Larry, and Curly would feel, but the short bears resemblance to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Hiawatha in that it's a poetical telling of a story. I doubt though the gag writers at Columbia would credit that with their inspiration. They've got mutiny in the ranks of the Woman Haters, Larry wants to get married to Marjorie White. It's a disgraceful situation that threatens to leave Curly totally at the mercy of Moe without Larry as a buffer.If you can orient yourself to the musical rhyme which could be taken as a harbinger of rap, the Stooges solve the problem in their normal manner. This salute to misogyny called Woman Haters is not a bad debut for the boys.
Evan J. Chase
After the 3 Stooges rid themselves of the highly annoying and abusive Ted Healy,(who was killed in a drunken brawl several years later), they were signed by Harry Cohn of Columbia for a few short films. We know 192 shorts and 23 years later they were rediscovered and revered as cult heros. Their characters were much more evolved in this first entry than any of the MGM films they did, where they yielded the spotlight to Ted Healy most of the time. Once their individual characters really materialized, by 1935, they did some of their best work. The surreal quality of Woman Haters, the lively music score and memorable song: "....for you...my life, my love, my all....." makes this an interesting first entry. A very good print is on the DVD release: "Curly Classics"
