Gents in a Jam

Larry, Moe, and Shemp are painters. Shemp gets a telegram from his rich Uncle Phineas who is coming for a visit. Mrs. McGruder is their landlady. Mrs. Duggan is their new neighbor. Shemp accidentally tears off her skirt and her giant husband Rocky comes looking for her.

Rocky really makes this one work. He gets to beat up on Shemp and that's great fun. He's the standout from a standard Stooges short. He's a great foil and he works real good with the boys.

This is another brilliant Shemp short, topped off by Emil Sitka's delightful performance. The boys are in a fix: broke again and facing eviction. Worse yet, Shemp and Larry are petrified of the landlady, Mrs. MacGruder. Moe has a great scene when he soliloquizes on his mastery over women. He shows his true colors when Mrs. Battleaxe, oops, I mean Mrs. MacGruder, comes on the scene (and you must check out Shemp and Larry when this happens). Sitka portrays Shemp's wealthy Uncle Phineas, and an air of mystery is imparted when the landlady repeats out loud, "Phineas Bowman" in an obvious tone of recognition. Then, of course, we have the jealous-husband-beautiful-wife subplot (thankfully, plots never matter where the Stooges are concerned). Rocky Duggan, the strongest man in the world, performs his service to humanity by asking people if they have any phone books they would like torn in half. He would have little to do here in the Virgin Islands; our phone books aren't that thick, and that's even with the British Virgin Islands thrown in. Nonetheless, I wouldn't want to get on his bad side, which is exactly what the Sttoges do through no fault of their own. Except for the scene when Rocky throttles Shemp's double, it is Emil Sitka who inadvertently takes the brunt of Rocky's wrath. Emil truly shines here. But if I were Uncle Phineas, I'd think twice about marrying a woman with the most devastating right cross in history. Rocky's still spitting out his teeth.

And Ed Bernds seemed to get out of Columbia at just the right time, as it wasn't too long after this short that the decline with Jules White using stock footage in many of the shorts would start. And I've always been a Jules White fan, but I admit that the quality of the stooge shorts went downhill starting in 1953.

All that aside, "Gents" is a great one and perhaps--in my mind--Emil Sitka's greatest performance in a stooge comedy, as poor Uncle Phineas, who seems to get bumped and knocked around more than the human body can endure. And watch for that great knee-shot he takes in the closing minutes of this short, heh.

A great three stooges comedy--Ed Bernds went out on a high note.

Excellent, fast-paced short dealed with Moe, Larry and Shemp facing eviction from their landlady, and the only bright prospect being a financial rescue by Shemp's rich Uncle Phineas (hilariously played by Emil Sitka in a stand-out performance). One of the last really outstanding Stooge shorts featuring Shemp, before increased budgetary restrictions by Columbia forced the team to rely on a significant use of stock footage from earlier films.