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Six Stooges and Counting by Ramsey Campbell

Trade Paperback – Electric Dreamhouse – Sep 2023 – 269 pages

When Ramsey Campbell first encountered the Three Stooges, he was only a bemused spectator. Now he’s an admirer, and this personal appreciation celebrates the reasons. Few Hollywood comedy teams have endured like the Stooges, either in length of career or in continuing to entertain. One secret of their longevity was how their line-up often changed. Moe and Larry were the constant personnel, supported over the decades by Shemp and Curly and a trinity of Joes, one of them uncredited.

In Six Stooges and Counting Campbell argues that the impermanence of identity is a frequent theme of their films, one aspect of the anarchy they incarnate. Once he believed there was little to their comedy but knockabout, and in this book he demonstrates how wrong he was. You’ll learn of their influence on Kubrick and Tarantino, and may it be present in Fassbinder’s films and Hong Kong action movies as well? You’ll find them playing Shakespeare and Greek tragedy, and figuring in Beckett and Bram Stoker. To quote Bridget Fonda: “I think that anybody who doesn’t like the Three Stooges just never really watched.” Ramsey Campbell looked at them afresh and hopes this book will make the reader do that too.