Husbands Beware (1956) User Reviews

Beware! "Husbands Beware" is not all-new, but it is entertaining

[jimtinder · 7/10 · 20 March 2005]

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.

Good remake

[holme-1 · 17 August 2001]

This is a pretty good remake of "Brideless Groom", the new footage is excellent, but the problem is that most of it is in the first five minutes, and the new ending is only 20 seconds long. But the first five minutes of new footage is so good it could've been a good short all by itself.

Grade: B

Good one with Shemp!

[Movie Nuttball · 10/10 · 30 June 2005]

The Three Stooges has always been some of the many actors that I have loved. I love just about every one of the shorts that they have made. I love all six of the Stooges (Curly, Shemp, Moe, Larry, Joe, and Curly Joe)! All of the shorts are hilarious and also star many other great actors and actresses which a lot of them was in many of the shorts! In My opinion The Three Stooges is some of the greatest actors ever and is the all time funniest comedy team!

One of My favorite Stooges shorts with Shemp is none other than Husbands Beware! All appearing in this short are the beautiful Christine McIntyre, Dee Green, Doris Houck, Alyn Lockwood, Johnny Kascier, Nancy Saunders, Lu Leonard, Maxine Gates, and Emil Sitka. Green and McIntyre provide great performances here! There are so many funny parts here. This is a very hilarious short. There is another similar Three Stooges short like this one called Brideless Groom and I recommend both!

Better than the original.

[crusefamily · 10/10 · 15 September 2001]

HUSBANDS BEWARE is a remake of the Shemp classic BRIDELESS GROOM. The film's new cooking scene at the beginning of the film is great. The stooges are always funny when they cook. However after the first few minutes of cooking footage, we cut to original footage of BRIDELESS GROOM. One thing I noticed about these 1953 to 1956 remakes are that they do fit with the new story. They do an insert shot if the old story line doesn't match.

HUSBANDS BEWARE does have a new ending, but I won't give it away to those who want to be surprised.

**** out of 4 stars.

butcher job of classic Brideless Groom

[simeon_flake · 5/10 · 14 December 2004]

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

No need really for this remake

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 13 April 2018]

"Husbands Beware" is an American 16-minute live action short film from 1956 and this one was made by White and Adler and it is one of the many Three Stooges short films, and to be more precise, one of the many remakes they made of their own works. When this one came out over 60 years ago, it was shortly after Shemp's surprising death. But you still see him in this one actually playing the most central character if you want to say so. Like pretty much all other Three Stooges shorts, this one is in black-and-white and it is really all about the comedy. Shhemp needs to get married quickly to inherit a fortune, but things may not seem exactly the way they are, for him, for the potential brides and eventually for everybody I guess. I would say the story isn't too shabby, but not too good either to really justify this remake. But I can say that it wa sgood this was such a short film. By the way if we can trust imdb here, then this means that this story has been done aside from the Three Stooges many times too in the past with other cast and crew. Is it really this entertaining? Not here at least I would say. And I give the watch a thumbs-down and don't recommend checking it out. Watch something else instead.

What could have been . . .

[angus_dei · 10 April 2005]

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.

Quite a jam for Shemp!

[slymusic · 5 May 2007]

"Husbands Beware" is a very good Three Stooges short starring Shemp, Larry, and Moe. It is a remake, with lots of stock footage, of an earlier Stooge short in public domain: "Brideless Groom" (1947). Personally, I think the remake is better and more interesting than the original. Shemp marries off his two overweight sisters (Maxine Gates and Lu Leonard) to Moe and Larry, but the boys' happiness doesn't even last a minute! These two portly women are quite domineering and physically abusive toward their new husbands, forcing them to prepare dinner ("That's what husbands are for!"). From then on, it gets worse: Moe and Larry attempt to get even with the innocent Shemp, who never realized how mean his two sisters can be.

Highlights: Justice of the Peace J.M. Benton (Emil Sitka) speaks one unforgettable line during the closing fight scene: "Hold hands, you lovebirds" (stock footage). Miss Hopkins (Christine McIntyre) really lets Shemp have it for supposedly impersonating her cousin (stock footage). Moe and Larry have some oddball ideas about how to prepare a turkey for their wedding dinner, with disastrous results (new footage). Moe and Shemp crowd a phone booth to retrieve a nickel that Shemp dropped, and they end up wrecking the booth (stock footage). And finally, Shemp gives a voice lesson to a particularly awful student (Dee Green) (stock footage).

The new footage for "Husbands Beware," which takes up roughly half of the film, was directed by Jules White, whereas the stock footage from "Brideless Groom" was directed by Ed Bernds, who didn't even receive credit. Churning out all of these stock footage remakes in the mid-1950s was a terrible burden on Jules White, but Columbia Pictures unfortunately had to tighten its belt as two-reeler short subjects were being phased out. Although a majority of these Stooge remakes are not as good as the originals, "Husbands Beware" is one that stands out in my opinion as a well-made remake.