I caught a clip of one of their prewar shorts, which was dubbed into spanish.
Was Latin America a big market for american films, before WWII?
My wife (from Brazil) told me that the Stooges were popular in Brazil (they were called “the three idiots”), and that they were in theatres as late as the early 1970’s.
Do American films sell well in Latin America?
Why sointenly!
Not sure about the 3 Stooges, but I do now that Laurel and Hardy filmed several of their shorts and movies in different languages, including Spanish, to appeal to the growing world market.
http://www.a-1video.com/laurel.htm
The usual solution was and is the use of translated subtitles, the stooges movies should had appeared before and during WWII in Latin America, but most of their modern popularity came later (even in the USA) when their shorts appeared in TV in the 50’s or 60’s. Then all their shorts were translated to Spanish for the small screen and I can report that in my childhood I enjoyed the stooges shorts that where shown in El Salvador during the 70’s.
Virtually all Spanish dubs come from those days.
The rest of Latin America then also liked the stooges (los 3 Chiflados), so much so that in Argentina there is a Stooges museum:
http://www.chifladoseo.com.ar/main3/objetos.asp
The Stooges’ brand of slapstick would translate very well.
There was a great dry spell in the late 70’s early 80’s when no English Stooges could be found anywhere except some independent cinemas cashing in on the nostalgia. But the Spanish channel in Newark carried them dubbed every night.
“Los Tres Chiflados”.
It was great how they dubbed the voices but the sound effects were left intact.