sddavis63 If you like The Three Stooges you'll undoubtedly like this 17 minute short. There were certainly some amusing moments in it, but like all the Stooges' work, this revolves around their particular style of slapstick comedy, and I have to confess that somehow the Stooges just never really did it for me. Their slapstick always seemed angry rather than funny, and even though it was obviously fake, their antics always seemed more likely to cause hurt rather than to cause laughter. In this short, the slapstick revolves around the attempts to find Shemp (who is a Professor of Music in this) a wife, because he's just inherited half a million dollars on condition that he marry within 48 hours of the will being read. One of his students is interested, but once word of the inheritance gets out , there's suddenly a long line-up of potential brides, and a pretty good cat fight emerges between them. Fans of the Stooges will enjoy. For me, it has all the elements that drive me nuts about them. 4/10

MartinHafer Shemp finds out that he stands to inherit a million dollars IF he is married within 24 hours. Considering how hideous he looks and his personality, it isn't surprising that he can't get a taker--that is until an article appears in the paper explaining his predicament--at which point five crazed women appear from no where to claim their new hubby (plus the money, of course).While I don't hate the Three Stooges and like to watch their shorts on occasion, they never, even on their best day, came close to the brilliant comedy of Buster Keaton. That's why I disliked this film, as it was a ripoff of the plot from Keaton's masterpiece, SEVEN CHANCES. With the Stooges it wasn't uncommon for Columbia Pictures to steal old comedy plots or just recycle older Stooge shorts. So, from the outset, this film is a pale imitation of an original. It's also obvious that this film lacks the charm and subtlety of the original and the gags generally seem very forced (paricularly the phone booth scene). The cousin Basil bit, however, was pretty cute and funny--though far from subtle! However, the worst aspect of the film was the not particularly funny conclusion. In the Keaton version, hundreds of women appeared to marry him and the action became very fast and furious--here, it all stayed in one small room and lacked comedic punch--ending in a fizzle.Overall, a dull retread. Also, before marking this review "not helpful", be sure to FIRST see SEVEN CHANCES to see what I am talking about--then you decide.

slymusic Directed by the wonderful Edward Bernds, "Brideless Groom" is nothing "short" (if you'll forgive the pun) of a classic Three Stooges film that just happens to be in public domain. In this short, Prof. Shemp Howard is a vocal instructor who reluctantly gives in to the pressure from Moe & Larry to find himself a bride in order to collect a huge inheritance from his deceased uncle. In my opinion, money is the wrong reason to get married, hence it is easy for me to feel sorry for Shemp as he is placed in this unfair predicament by his uncle & his two partners. But at least Moe & Larry receive their comeuppance at the end of this short when all of Shemp's former girlfriends learn of his inheritance and cause a wild slapstick fight for his affections.My favorite highlights from "Brideless Groom" include the following. During the famous phone booth gag, Larry thinks he's safe outside, but he takes his share of the belts! The beautiful Miss Hopkins (Christine McIntyre) mistakes Shemp for her cousin Basil and showers him with smooches; when she realizes her mistake, she beats up Shemp pretty badly, all the while not letting him say a word during her polar opposites of treatment. At the start of this film, Shemp gives a voice lesson to an excruciatingly horrible student (Dee Green); he isn't helped very much by his piano accompanist Larry, who falls asleep during the lesson (and yes, Larry did play the piano in real life). And who could forget the famous "Hold hands, you lovebirds!" line spoken by the justice of the peace (brilliantly portrayed by Emil Sitka), after which he gets smashed in the head with a bird cage? One final piece of trivia for "Brideless Groom": Edward Bernds remembered that in the aforementioned scene with Shemp & Christine McIntyre, Christine was afraid to smack Shemp because she was a true lady who never made it a point to slap anybody around. After doing a few poor takes, it was Shemp himself who actually begged her to sock him hard! That was all she needed to hear; on the next take, Christine really pounded him!

Michael DeZubiria I've read a lot of reviews on the IMDb (well, all five of the ones that have been written at the time that I'm writing this) and I'm surprised at the amount of praise heaped upon The Brideless Groom, which is undoubtedly one of the lesser comedies performed by the Stooges. I prefer the older ones where it was Larry, Curly and Moe, although Shemp gets credit for most of the funny scenes in Sing a Song of Six Pants, another Stooges short which is only moderately amusing but far superior to Brideless Groom. Indeed, there is a single slightly amusing scene in the film, the "don't-hit-a-lady" scene, which is barely amusing at all and is 15 minutes into the film. Not very promising in a 17-minute comedy.Shemp is a voice trainer whose uncle has passed away and left him an inheritance of $500,000, provided he get married within 48 hours, which is short enough notice as it is, but by the time Shemp learns about it he has only 7 hours left. This is a premise that had been done and redone before, but was not, I don't think, a massive cliché at the time this film was made, as it is now. There are a series of gags throughout the film, none of which are even close to the level of comedy for which the Three Stooges are so widely known. It seems that the Stooges have run into the same troubles that plagued so many of Shirley Temple's films – there is too little reliance on content and too much reliance just on the fact that they're there.The standard characteristics of the Stooges are here, Moe is the mean one, whose meanness is certainly not used sparingly in this film, and the slapstick sound effects (although with more exceptions than usual) are fairly amusing, but are plugged into their standard slots in this film. The line "Hold hands, you lovebirds" is immortal. The rest of the film is not.There is much talk among the other people who have reviewed this movie for this site about this being one of the best of the Stooges shorts, that you won't find one weak moment, about how this is their best since the early 30s shorts. It's just not true. I can certainly understand a level of automatic respect for milestone classics and for the giants of early comedy, which the Three Stooges certainly are, but that respect is damaged when poorer films are praised more than they should be. The Brideless Groom deserves some respect because it is a Stooges film, but for exactly the same reason, it should have been better. The Three Stooges were just better than this.