Pardon My Clutch

This is not the most memorable of the Stooges' shorts, but it's still a Stooges' short, and therefore worthy of consideration (and certainly worth watching too). There are some lags, such as when the Stooges set up camp in their living room as a "dry run" for their impending camping trip. Of course, once again Shemp is ailing, so good old Cousin Claud is called onto the scene (the guy's a certified quack, but what the hell?, he works cheap). I have to wonder at the inordinate number of times Shemp had to play an ailing character in these shorts; could it be all the negative karma so generated that caused Shemp's early death in real life? If you believe in stuff like that, you most certainly would have to wonder. By the way, there is one good bit during the "living room camping" scene; it involves Larry shouting to Moe, "Foither! Foither!," and getting a crossbeam shoved into his face for his effort. Claud is annoying as hell, so when he gets stuck at the end of the film (with the Columbus), good feelings ensue. There's also the tiresome "You idiot, I meant skip taking the pills, not skip rope!" gag thrown in, but the service station scene (with the confusion over the ownership of a certain tire) more than makes up for it. The very best of the film occurs at the very end: first you have Shemp saying, "Wait, I'm hungry too!", and then you have Larry saying, "Well, what's wrong with that?". I'm telling you, those precious seconds at the very end are more than worth sitting through the first twenty minutes! And, all seriousness aside, those twenty minutes aren't really all that bad, really they're not! Watch this flick!