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Pardon My Clutch (1948)

metaldams · 16 · 10949

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Offline metaldams

http://www.threestooges.net/filmography/episode/105
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040681/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

http://www.emilsitka.com/pardonmyclutch1948.html

Read Emil Sitka's diary entry during the filming of PARDON MY CLUTCH in the link above

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=js1BN7I6WQs

Watch PARDON MY CLUTCH in the link above



      PARDON MY CLUTCH to me is the first Shemp short that feels like a real Shemp short.  Now, my impression of a real Shemp short is a lower budget, domestic comedy with a simple plot.  PARDON MY CLUTCH has a very simple premise of Shemp being sick and a "doctor" friend prescribes they get away and sells them a car to do so.  No gags in this film where they stray away from from the main plot like in some previous Shemp films.  Everything here feels very tight and to the point, and I appreciate that.

      One thing I love about this short is the boys have very normal wives.  As entertaining as the overly domineering wives in a film like DIZZY DOCTORS are, it's even more bizzare that the boys have wives who are so normal.  One of my grandmothers was a simple house wife like these wives.  It's so funny watching Shemp's wife react to the boys setting up the tent inside the house.  It's the perfect expression of what the heck did she get herself into.  Really, how did The Three Stooges land wives like that anyway?  That's an entire comedy in and of itself.

      This short overall has a lot of random fun little moments.  Missing that one huge scene which is the only thing preventing me from giving this short a perfect score.  Still, lots of fun little bits, as there's not a single moment in this short I consider slow.  My favorite parts?  Larry's line about fish making great brain food only for Moe to tell Larry he should fish for a whale is awesome!  The whole skipping rope gag is great, as is the way Shemp's cheek involuntary moves around as the boys try to wake him.  Moe getting hung over the car is a slapstick highlight, as is the domino effect Larry's wife creates as she opens the door and causes the tent to fall apart, not to mention several items in the room being destroyed!  Oh, and another thing worth mentioning, when the boys are outside, Moe's sweater rules!

9/10



- Doug Sarnecky


Offline Squirrelbait

Quote
Oh, and another thing worth mentioning, when the boys are outside, Moe's sweater rules!

Haha! I thought I was the only one who noticed that - it's a great sweater indeed!
Now, onto the short itself, I thought it was very entertaining and filled with some great laughs. My favorite part, though, is when Larry and Shemp are trying to get the tire past the jack, and Moe 'uses his brain' by simply giving it 'one quick jerk!'

I'll give it 9/10 as well.
If there's no other place around the place, I reckon this must be the place, I reckon.


Offline Shemp_Diesel

Well, I have to be a downer and say we've hit our first lull during the Shemp era. Last week's short was so-so and I don't know what to say about this one. I'm sure we all have that one short or two which just doesn't do it for us, no matter how much other people seem to praise it--and Clutch seems to be that short for me.

I'm not sure why this short doesn't set me on fire either--don't know if I can put it into words; I'll just say I find it very dodgy to say this short is on the same level as a Who Done It? or Listen, Judge...

6 out of 10...

Talbot's body is the perfect home for the Monster's brain, which I will add to and subtract from in my experiments.


Offline Paul Pain

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Color me a lover.  I give this short a 9/10.

I particularly enjoy this amalgamation of themed jokes, but the big "moment" for me is the scene at the end: the combo of the car jokes, chasing the tire, and Emil Sitka are just great.  Shemp wants lunch too!

I can appreciate why this short doesn't do it for others, though.  This is a short that has to appeal to one's personal tastes moreso than many other shorts.

My only neg on this short is Matt McHugh.  And I will give him the break because this was his only Stooge appearance (besides the stock footage in WHAM-BAM-SLAM).

Just changed my rating... Matt McHugh is A-W-F-U-L!
« Last Edit: June 19, 2016, 11:54:38 AM by Paul Pain »
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Offline metaldams

Color me a lover.  I give this short a 10/10.

I particularly enjoy this amalgamation of themed jokes, but the big "moment" for me is the scene at the end: the combo of the car jokes, chasing the tire, and Emil Sitka are just great.  Shemp wants lunch too!

I can appreciate why this short doesn't do it for others, though.  This is a short that has to appeal to one's personal tastes moreso than many other shorts.

My only neg on this short is Matt McHugh.  And I will give him the break because this was his only Stooge appearance (besides the stock footage in WHAM-BAM-SLAM).

You you said weeks back your first 10/10 Shemp short wasn't in a while, I thought for sure it would be next week's entry.  I'm surprised it's PARDON MY CLUTCH.

It's been a while since I've seen this one until last night, and I was not expecting to enjoy this short as much as I did.  Again, most if not all (like next week's short), of my favorite Shemp shorts have very simple and tight plots, sparse settings, and just an excuse for the boys to be the boys.  PARDON MY CLUTCH is a wonderful example of this.

By the way, the name of Moe's wife is Narcissus!  Love that name, and love the way Moe screams it!
- Doug Sarnecky


Offline Paul Pain

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You you said weeks back your first 10/10 Shemp short wasn't in a while, I thought for sure it would be next week's entry.  I'm surprised it's PARDON MY CLUTCH.

It's been a while since I've seen this one until last night, and I was not expecting to enjoy this short as much as I did.  Again, most if not all (like next week's short), of my favorite Shemp shorts have very simple and tight plots, sparse settings, and just an excuse for the boys to be the boys.  PARDON MY CLUTCH is a wonderful example of this.

By the way, the name of Moe's wife is Narcissus!  Love that name, and love the way Moe screams it!

Well I am now just making things up as I go because main ThreeStooges.net page no longer has a spot to login for me to reference my original ratings, but no SQUAREHEADS was not my first 10/10.  I can't even remember if I gave it a 10 or a 9 anymore!
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Offline Dr. Hugo Gansamacher

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Count me among the non-fans of this short. The only part of it to which I look forward when I watch it is the appearance, late in it, of Emil Sitka as an escaped lunatic posing as someone with a lot of money to throw around (another one of those!). The entry from his diary says that he did the part in a single take.

Metaldams has mentioned that the setup of this short is unusual in that the boys have "normal" wives (that is really two unusual features: (1) they have have wives and (2) the women are "normal," i.e., not abusive). What strikes me as unusual is the presence of a peculiar "friend" of theirs, the slimy "Claude." I believe this character is the most odious stinker in all the shorts. The shorts abound, of course, with nemeses, bullies, and swindlers who try to get the better of the boys, but in none is there a supposed friend as smugly officious and in the end as treacherously selfish as this repulsive lump. So far as I can recall, the only character who comes anywhere near this standard of foulness is "Jerry" in From Nurse to Worse, who leads the boys into an act of insurance fraud; but even that was comparatively innocent. Claude intervenes in the care of Shemp by insisting on the supreme medical wisdom of his "doctor book," then plays the slick used-car salesman to fob his "Columbus" off on them, and then snatches it back from them on the instant that he thinks he can get more money for it from someone else. I don't find the character funny or in any way a welcome presence on screen. In contrast to the conventional Stooge heavies, he seems to me not to engage with their kind of comedy at all, except perhaps when he sounds out Shemp's teeth.  The presence of this character is, I think, the main reason why I get so little pleasure from watching this short.


Offline Lefty

This has never been among my favorite Shemp shorts (nor was the remake).  Based on Dr. Hugo's opinion of Claude, Shemp's "friend" reminds me of Ruben Amaro Jr. -- smug, incompetent, and in need of a klop in kop -- a punch in the head.  The good moments include the fish/brain-food/whale lines, "Take two pills and skip an hour," the tent falling apart because Larry's wife opened the door, the Stooges chasing the rolling tire and getting into it with "Squid McGuffey," and of course, Emil Sitka's performance.


Offline Big Chief Apumtagribonitz

Every single gag in this one is executed perfectly, right down to where Moe and Larry sit up from a dead sleep and yell " SKIP! " in perfect unison.  Larry takes the ridgepole in the chops perfectly, gets noosed over the car perfectly ( sorry, Metal, old boy, it's Larry, not Moe ) the tire guy's hammer perfectly covers the sound of the settling tire, the tent and the entire living room collapse due to one wrong turn of a door knob ( the physical set-up for that gag must have taken days ) I could go on and on, these gags are exquisitely executed, and all really funny.  I think this is a great one, a Shemp that is as funny as the best Curlys.  Claude doesn't bother me, he just strikes me as an underachiever who thinks he's an overachiever, and he benefits from Moe's aforementioned ( by me ) Magical Thinking ( as in, Claude: I can take care of Shemp better than any doctor!  Moe: Sure he can! ).  No logical thought process known to the human brain should lead Moe or anybody else to that conclusion, hence Magical Thinking, which is a real psychiatric term, not my own, and not an optimistic diagnosis by any means.  I'm not one who assigns numerical ratings to these things, but to me, in terms of sheer number of laughs and perfectly executed slapstick, this is as good as they get.  This is another one that I really regret never seeing in a real theater: as I observed about Tassels In The Air, I bet the audience roared.


Offline Kopfy2013

 I love Moe's sweater;  The Ticonderoga line  if one can  spell Ticonderoga!!!;  he's my brother he's my husband exchange;  skip an hour; Emil.

 However I thought the gags were forced and rushed.

  The tooth pulling, the car loading did not do much for me.

 I give this a seven.


Offline Woe-ee-Woe-Woe80

I could never understand the high praise people have for this short, I've always thought this short was only good at best but would've been better if they would've chosen another actor to play Claude instead of Matt McHugh, I've thought he gave a poor performance as Claude and was someone who I've found annoying, also he never really seemed like he was all that friendly towards the stooges either.

I do love Emil Sitka's character turning out to be a mental patient along with seeing Claude becoming selfish and greedy towards the end of the episode only to realize he didn't get what he wanted, this is one short that gets rolling towards the end of the episode.

Overall I give this short a 7/10 due to how good the final section of the short was along with Larry and Moe's "fish" line.


Offline Daddy Dewdrop

This one seems to be a love it or hate it short.  I'm kinda in the middle.  A few good Shemp bits, but not enough to compensate for the supporting characters.

#133. Pardon My Clutch


Offline Shemp_Diesel

I guess the best description I can give of this short is bland or meh. It almost feels to me like one of those bland sitcoms that started popping up when this short was released--or popped up much later in the 1950s. Even the trio of wives are just kind of there & don't really contribute to the short much from what I remember.

Then there are gags that just aren't funny or go anywhere (or both)--like the runaway tire gag when the boys run into Squid McGuffey running a gas station. As I've stated before in a different thread, I find the remake to be one of those rare cases where I enjoy that much more than the original. Even if some of the gags from Wham Bam Slam seem stock or old hat, they still get laughs from me--unlike this short...

4/10....
Talbot's body is the perfect home for the Monster's brain, which I will add to and subtract from in my experiments.


Offline Dr. Mabuse

One of the few Shemp misfires from the late 1940s. "Pardon My Clutch" would have fared better if it had featured Frank McHugh instead of his untalented brother Matt. (I also envision Wallace Ford as Claude, since he never worked with the Stooges.) The laughs are sporadic, but the last seven minutes refreshingly take place on the Columbia Ranch.  When I revisit this short, I'll skip Matt McHugh and watch the second half.

5/10


Offline NoahYoung

I consider this a good Shemp short, nothing more, nothing less. There is no great comedy set piece to be found here, as mentioned above.
I agree that Claude weakens the short. I guess the Columbia brass did, too, since he never appeared with the boys again. I enjoyed this on my recent viewing a few days ago much more than I did on my many prior viewings.

Best line
-------------
Moe: Give me a hand.
Shemp: (sticks out both hands) Which one?

This is a semi-remake of Laurel and Hardy's PERFECT DAY, with a pinch of THEM THAR HILLS thrown in for good measure.
They even repeat the tire-and-jack gag, and a bit of the "good-bye" scenes, from the former.  The "taking a trip for Shemp's health" is borrowed from the latter.

5:28 - good-bye
7:50 -- tire-and-jack




13:30 - good-bye
Burt Lancaster was too short!
- The Birdman of Alcatraz


Offline NoahYoung

By the way, the name of Moe's wife is Narcissus!  Love that name, and love the way Moe screams it!

On the first take, Moe screamed, "Keep my wife's name -- out your &%$&^$%&^ing mouth!"
 >:D
Burt Lancaster was too short!
- The Birdman of Alcatraz