A Snitch in Time

Infobox Film
name = A Snitch in Time


caption =
director = Edward Bernds
writer = Elwood Ullman
starring = Moe Howard
Larry Fine
Shemp Howard
Jean Willes
Henry Kulky
John L. Cason
John Merton
art direction = Charles Clague |
editing = Henry DeMond
producer = Hugh McCollum
distributor = Columbia Pictures
released = flagicon|US December 7, 1950
runtime = 16' 28"
country = USA
language = English
amg_id = 1:145366
imdb_id = 0042978
preceded_by = "Slaphappy Sleuths"
followed_by = "Three Arabian Nuts"

"A Snitch in Time" is the 128th short subject starring American slapstick comedy team the Three Stooges. The trio made a total of 190 shorts for Columbia Pictures between 1934 and 1959.

Plot

The trio own a furniture shop ("Ye Olde Furniture Shoppe: Antiques Made While U Waite") who are staining some furniture they have delivered to Miss Scudder (Jean Willes), an attractive curly-haired brunette who owns a boarding house. While attending to their duties (and nearly destroying the furniture in the process), several new boarders at Miss Scudder's place are actually a trio of crooks who have just robbed a jewellery store. The Stooges are held at gunpoint while Miss Scudder is tied up and gagged in her kitchen while the crooks ransack the house to steal several valuable heirlooms in her possession. The Stooges and Miss Scudder work together and unravel the crooks' plot.

Ed Bernds and violence

"A Snitch In Time" is a particularly violent film for the Stooges. The topper remains 1943's "They Stooge to Conga", but "A Snitch In Time" runs a close second. Interestingly, this film was directed by Edward Bernds, who always maintained that the Stooges did not have to be violent for the sake of being violent. Columbia short subject head and director Jules White, on the other hand, was notorious for the excessive abuse in his shorts.

Quotes

**Larry: "Hey Moe? I finished the drawer."
**Moe: "Well, whaddaya want me to do, kiss ya?"
**Larry "(with a boyish smile)": "Wellllll..." *SLAP*

Notes

The title "A Snitch in Time" parodies the aphorism "a stitch in time saves nine." [Solomon, Jon. (2002) "The Complete Three Stooges: The Official Filmography and Three Stooges Companion", p. 377; Comedy III Productions, Inc., ISBN 0971186804]

References

Further reading

*"Moe Howard and the Three Stooges"; by Moe Howard [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0806507233] , (Citadel Press, 1977).
*"The Complete Three Stooges: The Official Filmography and Three Stooges Companion"; by Jon Solomon [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0971186804] , (Comedy III Productions, Inc., 2002).
*"The Three Stooges Scrapbook"; by Jeff Lenburg, Joan Howard Maurer, Greg Lenburg [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0806509465] (Citadel Press, 1994).
*"The Three Stooges: An Illustrated History, From Amalgamated Morons to American Icons"; by Michael Fleming [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0767905563] (Broadway Publishing, 2002).
*"One Fine Stooge: A Frizzy Life in Pictures"; by Steve Cox and Jim Terry [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1581823630] , (Cumberland House Publishing, 2006).