Brideless Groom

"Professor Shemp Howard - Teacher Of Voice," reads the sign on the door.

After a funny scene with a woman whose voice would crack glass, Shemp learns from Moe that a recently-departed uncle left him $500,000 with the provision that he get married. Whoa.....not a confirmed bachelor like Shemp! No thanks, but wait....thanks to Moe's persuasiveness (some brutality) and thinking how much money that is (about $10 million today), Shem goes searching for a bride.

He has seven hours to find one, too, as a time deadline is alway in the will (only in the Three Stooges flicks to hear things like this!).

One happens after that starts slowly but builds to an incredible finish at the Justice Of The Peace where all hell breaks loose with a bunch of women beating up everyone in sight. It's incredible!

There are one or two other Shemp-era shorts I like more (i.e. SCRAMBLED BRAINS), but I think one can say--without much argument--that in this particular episode, Shemp gives his greatest comedic performance as a stooge after rejoining the team in 1946.

Scene for scene, this episode hardly lets up: from Professor Shemp Howard's voice lessons with the glass-shattering Dee Green, to his futile attempts to win a dame's hand in marriage (this is your little snookums... will you marry me *click*) to the uproarious finish, it never fails to keep me in stitches.

I would be remiss not mention that immortal scene with Miss Hopkins (the always lovely Christine McIntyre). Btw, isn't she rather under-dressed and over amorous in greeting the man she thinks is her 'Cousin' Basil? Who knows, maybe the actual Basil was a "very" distant cousin, which makes it legal in some states (as far as I know). >:-]

"Gargle with old razor blades. Can I help it if I'm not cousin Basil? I think the piano's out of tune. Ginger Grey. This is your little snookums." Laughs throughout the entire 20 minute short as the boys spoof gold diggers and opera singers. They even manage to show us how to properly demonstrate to some attractive ladies how to handle both a rifle and a bear trap. Wonder how many times they rehearsed the scene with the phone booth. Adding Christine McIntyre and Emil Sitka, 2 frequent collaborators, to the mix makes it even better. Only Vernon Dent is missing. The Stooges did some great individual scenes, but this was their best overall.

I love this short. It's probably most famous for Emil Sitka's, repeated Stooge straightman, line "Hold hands, you lovebirds.". Some of my favorite moments are when Moe and Shemp are stuck in the phone booth, Shemp's critique of his student, and Christine McIntyre thinking Shemp's a cousin. You have to see this one, if you love Shemp, Sitka, and the Three Stooges.

OK, the other reviewers have pretty much covered the main points of this great little gem, i.e. the story started out in life as material for Buster Keaton's silent classic "7 Chances". Comedy, or acting in any genre for that much, is merely interpreting a scene and lines that someone else has written and performed before, if it's not a totally original creation. Here we have The Stooges essentially doing material that was written and performed by someone else and yet for a low budget, short time span of a film, they're handling things just fine. Regardless of what the credits say on their films, real "stooge-philes" know that they had a lot of input on lines and direction. They took their work as seriously as a surgeon does a vital operation. Words spoken by Emil Sitka himself during a documentary about the boys. Here, what appears to be their usual anarchy over something so simple as getting married, is actually organized chaos. Every line is perfectly timed with a related physical action. How many comedians are around today that can claim such mastery? Most obviously the Seinfeld crew but none others that I've seen in the last 35 years of watching TV. The critics will always "pooh pooh" The Stooges or Laurel & Hardy and others but then again...who ever remembers the critic's names or what they said? Simply watch, laugh and enjoy!