Main Cast: Curly Joe DeRita, Larry Fine, Moe Howard, Adam West, Nancy Kovack, Henry Gibson, Murray Alper, Sally Starr
Release Year: 1965
Country: US
Run Time: 91 minutes
MPAA Rating: NR
Plot
The Three Stooges (Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Curly Joe De Rita) leave Boston for the Wild West when they are fired from the Society for the Preservation of Wildlife. With Eastern editor Kenneth Cabot (Adam West), the boys find themselves in lawless Wyoming and the target of every infamous gunslinger of the era. With help from Annie Oakley (Nancy Kovak), the Stooges and Cabot fight the likes of Billy the Kid, Johnny Ringo, Jesse James, Cole Younger, and the Dalton Gang, and soon Wild Bill Hickok and Bat Masters arrive in a blaze of bullets. Watch for longtime Stooges foil Emily Sitar in a triple role as Aberrant, a U.S. cavalry Colonel, and the Witch Doctor, with Henry Gibson as Charlie Horse, and Murray Alper as Chief Crazy Horse. Ellwood Ullman provides the screenplay from the story by director Norman Maurer, Moe's son-in-law. With character names like the Sunstroke Kid and Trigger Mortis, this last of the Stooges feature films ranks among the best. Annie has a fight in the middle of town with Belle Starr (Sally Starr), and the cowardly editor Cabot proves his bravery and falls for his heroine Annie. Years later in a tribute to history's longest running comedy trio, Adam West fondly remembered his experience in making The Outlaws Is Coming with the Stooges. West would score his biggest career plume with the television series Batman, but he was obviously in awe of working with Larry, Moe, and Curly Joe. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
Mort Mills - Trigger Mortis; Don Lamond - Rance Roden; Rex Holman - Sunstroke Kid; Emil Sitka - Witch Doctor; Wayne Mack - Jesse James; Audrey Betz; Curly Joe DeRita - Curly-Joe; Marilyn Fox; Sid Marion
Credit
Robert A. Peterson - Art Director, Norman Maurer - Director, Aaron Nibley - Editor, Paul Dunlap - Composer (Music Score), Joseph di Bella - Makeup, Irving Lippman - Cinematographer, Norman Maurer - Producer, James Crowe - Set Designer, James A. Crowe - Set Designer, Richard Albain - Special Effects, Elwood Ullman - Screenwriter
The Stooges round up the outlaws in The Outlaws Is Coming.
Rance Roden (Don Lamond) plans to kill off all the buffalo and thus cause the Indians to riot. After they destroy the US Cavalry (his real enemy), Rance and his gang will take over the West. Meanwhile, a Boston magazine gets wind of the buffalo slaughter and sends editor Kenneth Cabot (Adam West) and his associates (Moe, Larry and Curly-Joe) to Casper, Wyoming to investigate. Once there, Ken's shooting skills (secretly aided by sharp shooter Annie Oakley (Nancy Kovack) earn him the job of town sheriff. Rance has his band of bad guys called in to have the lawmen wiped out, but the Stooges sneak into the gang's hideout (while they are asleep) and glue their firearms to their holsters. When Ken confronts the bad guys, the bad guys (with Stooge-like prompting from the boys) decide that a life of justice is better than crime. Meanwhile, Rance and Trigger attempt to sell firearms to the Indians, but the Stooges foil this plan by snapping a picture of them selling in the process.
Notes
In a nod to television's key role in the resurgence of the Stooges' popularity, the outlaws were played by local TV hosts from across the U.S. whose shows featured the trio's old Columbia shorts.
On A&E's Biography, Adam West spoke about his involvement with the film and with the Stooges:
“
The Outlaws IS Coming. What a wonderful experience! Our first meeting at the Columbia ranch, one morning quite early, and I went in to makeup and got on my western duds and came out in the street. And I saw Larry Fine sitting in a chair and I think his wife was yelling at him about something. Actually, the guys were very serious off camera, their demeanors. They were very serious artists in their own way and I was surprised how quiet they were in respect to their screen personae.
I think the funniest little incident of the picture that I remember, the main thrust of the plot was that we were trying to save the buffalo and I was the young lawyer from Boston and we had the same interests and that's how we got together. So we spent the movie trying to save the buffalo. The wrap party at the end of the movie and Moe says, 'Ok, everyone's invited to my place in Bel Air for a buffalo barbecue!' And that sort of typifies these three restless knights. I never really spent much time with them away from the set. People don't do that often in Hollywood, you know, you're doing a series and you spend eighteen hours a day with people and you just kind of want to get away from them, it's probably more helpful that way. I wanted to go home with the Stooges every night, but they wouldn't let me! (laughs)
