Brideless Groom

Not wishing to repeat what everyone else has noted, I will only say this:

Nearly everybody says they loved Curly best... but I will put BRIDELESS GROOM up against ANY of other the Stooges shorts.

I think it's the most hilarious from start to finish, as well as being the most re-watchable.

The off-key singing student... Christine McIntire's "Cousin Basil" routine, and of course Emil Sitka's J.P. are highlights, but only around the Stooges' impeccable timing and the great writing too!

Nuff said.

The entire civilized world by now knows that this is where Emil Sitka says his immortal "Hold hands, you lovebirds." But Shemp Howard, Professor of Music, steals the show. Watch him tutoring Dee Green as she fractures the "Voices of Spring." Watch Shemp as he shaves by a mirror suspended from the ceiling by a string. Watch him as he gets walloped by Christine McIntyre. Watch him, and you will laugh and learn. Moe is no slouch either. Watch him as he attempts to induce a woman to sit on a bear trap. Larry, as usual, is the Zen master of reaction. All in all, one of the very best Stooge shorts. You won't find one weak moment.

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!

One of the best of the Three Stooges episodes with Shemp. Very funny, with good gags throughout, and a supporting cast that includes Christine McIntyre and Emil Sitka. Not to be missed!

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). >:-]