This color short of the Three Stooges, uploaded on 2.24.12, was shot by vaudevillian and photographer George Mann at Atlantic City’s Steel Pier in the summer of 1938. The routine instantly dies, of course, when the hot girl (Mann’s wife Barbara) fails to slap Moe and Larry with any real pizazz. The Stooges were the original “no laugh funny” guys if you were older than ten.

It always helps to be reminded that life actually manifested in color in the 1930s. It’s easy to let yourself believe that everybody and everything existed in black and white back then.

Why isn’t there 16mm color film of Howard Hawks directing Cary Grant and Jean Arthur during the making of Only Angels Have Wings (which was underway right around this time)? Or any other big-studio filmmakers working on any noteworthy films? Why do we have to settle for the Stooges?