Brideless Groom

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Brideless Groom

Directed by	Edward Bernds
Produced by	Hugh McCollum
Written by	Clyde Bruckman
Starring	Moe Howard Larry Fine Shemp Howard Dee Green Emil Sitka Christine McIntyre Doris Colleen Nancy Saunders Johnny Kascier Alyn Lockwood
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	September 11, 1947
Running time	16' 36"
Language	English
Preceded by	Hold That Lion! (1947)
Followed by	Sing a Song of Six Pants(1947)
IMDb profile

Brideless Groom is a 1947 Three Stooges short, produced by Hugh McCollum and directed by Edward Bernds. In the film, Shemp plays a music teacher who has just received an inheritance, but there is a catch: he must marry in 24 hours or he will not receive the money.

The basic plot of the film is not unique, having been used in (among others) Buster Keaton's 1925 comedy Seven Chances and in The Bachelor, a 1999 film starring Chris O'Donnell.

The film features longtime Stooges supporting player Emil Sitka's best-remembered line "Hold hands, you lovebirds!" (The line is engraved on Sitka's headstone.)

In 1956, the plot and footage of Brideless Groom was recycled in the short Husbands Beware.

Brideless is one of four Stooge shorts that fell into the public domain after the copyright lapsed in the 1960s (the other three being Malice in the Palace, Sing a Song of Six Pants, and Disorder in the Court). As such, these four shorts frequently appear on cheaply produced video or DVD compilations.

In 2005, Brideless Groom was colorized and included as one of the featured shorts on a Legend Films DVD compilation called The Three Stooges In Color, featuring wraparounds from The Film Crew.

[edit] Shemp's Injury on the Set

In this short, Christine McIntyre plays Miss Hopkins, a woman whom Shemp goes for but she mistakes him for her cousin Basil, and after learning her mistake, takes it out on Shemp by slapping him silly then finally punching him through her door. During the filming of the scene, when Christine threw her punch, she leaned too far into it, and hit Shemp for real and broke his nose. This mistake was left in the film, and when watched it in slow motion, Shemp can be seen falling down and opening his mouth like he was yelling in pain after the punch.

[edit] Further reading

Moe Howard and the Three Stooges; by Moe Howard [1], (Citadel Press, 1977).
The Complete Three Stooges: The Official Filmography and Three Stooges Companion; by Jon Solomon [2], (Comedy III Productions, Inc., 2002).
The Three Stooges Scrapbook; by Jeff Lenburg, Joan Howard Maurer, Greg Lenburg [3](Citadel Press, 1994).
The Three Stooges: An Illustrated History, From Amalgamated Morons to American Icons; by Michael Fleming [4](Broadway Publishing, 2002).
One Fine Stooge: A Frizzy Life in Pictures; by Steve Cox and Jim Terry [5], (Cumberland House Publishing, 2006).