Husbands Beware

Moe and Larry are newly henpecked husbands, having married Shemp's demanding sisters. At his music studio, Shemp learns he will inherit a fortune if he marries someone himself!

"Husbands Beware" is a remake of 1947's "Brideless Groom," widely considered by many to be one of the best Stooge films with Shemp. The remake contains most of the footage from that film. The new scenes, shot May 17, 1955, include the storyline of Moe and Larry marrying Shemp's sisters, along with their cooking of a turkey laced with turpentine! A few new scenes are tacked onto the end of the film as well(a double for Dee Green was used; if you blink, you will miss the double's appearance.)

"Husbands Beware" would have made for a good film with just the plot line of marrying the sisters. Budget considerations, coupled with fewer bookings for two-reel comedies, influenced the decision to use older footage.

Although completely new films were still being made by the Stooges, most of their releases by 1955-56 were made up of older films with a few new scenes tossed in. "Husbands Beware," while one of these hybrids, is watchable and entertaining; we get to see most of "Brideless Groom" again, and the new scenes are funny enough to get the viewer through the film. This film is one of the last Stooge comedies to feature new footage of Shemp, and it was released six weeks after his death.

7 out of 10.

If you watched this short without prior knowledge of its having incorporated footage from an earlier short, you would still notice a distinct lack of flow after the first scene. They would have been better off without any earlier footage at all. Moe and Larry marry Shemp's "sisters," but as soon as the vows are exchanged, the brides immediately turn into monsters intent on brow-beating their poor husbands into submission. Soon after that, we cut to Shemp Howard, Professor of Voice. Now we see Moe back to his usual domineering, violent self, which seems utterly incongruous in the face of the henpecking he withstood in the opening scene. It's like seeing two completely different shorts mistakenly spliced together. The hasty "ending" doesn't help matters either. They should have just developed the first scene more---they could have had a decent film extolling the virtues of bachelorhood.

Larry and Moe marry Shemp's two full-bodied sisters. The sisters/wives turn out to be real bullies. They command the boys to cook but they don't know how. Shemp tries to help and you know how that goes. Shemp is a voice teacher to a terrible singer. His uncle recently died and left him $500k. Only thing is that he needs to get married in seven hours to qualify for the inheritance.

This has a bit of recycling which often happens with the Stooges. This was released after Shemp's death. The connectivity between the first half and the second half is a bit jarring. Nevertheless, it is still good Stooges fun.

Having low expectations going in, the opening new footage (clocked at over five minutes) of 'Husbands' came as a pleasant surprise. I won't say the new footage was grade A material, but it provided a very solid foundation for what "could have been" a good all-original film.

Unfortunately, this was put together in 1955, during a time of one day shooting schedules. After the new footage, Jules White decided to just thumbtack stock footage from 'Brideless Groom' into this short, making for a not-so-smooth story transition, which Jules and Felix Adler try to remedy with a quickie bit of new footage at the end, giving us the old, worn-out ending of the boys (Moe & Larry in this case) getting shot in the butt.

3/10

One of the last shorts to have original footage with Shemp---he was 60 years old and if you look close some shots show it.

Partial remake of BRIDELESS GROOM has a new opening scenes where Moe&Larry marry two 300 pound bulldozers named Maxine Gates and Lu Leonard. Ordered to prepare a wedding feast, Moe&Larry prepare a roast turkey smothered in turpentine. Shemp,in charge of baking muffins,some up with rock hard towers that defy eating----one breaks off a table edge.

Lu Leonard went on to a solid career as a character actress---you might remember her from a Blake Edwards comedy where Dudley Moore was a bigamist whose wives are giving birth at the same time in the same hospital. Leonard is an admitting nurse who adamently refuses to let him see either wife.

Cut from t he original is a scene where Moe&Larry pretty Shemp up before he tries to court Christine Mc Intyre.