With the massive success of Laurel and Hardy, who producer Hal Roach had paired together after signing them separately in 1926 (they would remain with his studio until 1940), the man had the bright idea of creating a female counterpart duo, bringing together Zasu Pitts and Thelma Todd. The team would make seventeen popular shorts from 1931-33, their first two, Let’s Do Things and Catch-As Catch-Can, looked at here today.
Like all good comedy teams, you have two very different character types. Zasu comes across as the slightly depressed, nervous and fretful brunette, while Thelma is a much more vibrant and colourful blonde dame. . . the former’s desperation often dragging her more put together friend into rather unorthodox situations. In Let’s Do Things, they find themselves as employees selling music for a giant department store. . . while looking for a way out of their dead-end jobs.
Zasu is in an odd relationship with Milton (George Byron), a chubby loafer who is seemingly more interested in eating than dating – much to the chagrin of roommate Thelma. Though when Milton claims that he has become friends with a big spending doctor from Boston who is looking for a date while in town, she sees it as being the perfect opportunity to end her low earning ways.
Of course, the Doctor, Mandy (Jerry Mandy), is a short walkin’, fast talkin’, full of himself fusion of Jimmy Durante and Mel Brooks. An osteopath who can supposedly cure all, when Thelma tries to get out of the double date due to his odious behaviour, he has the perfect remedy – a headlock followed by shake-filled full nelson which convinces her to go on the date (after all, one more attempted cure might lead to a concussion).
Heading to the cabaret, all kinds of hijinks ensue. Zasu must deal with her uncomfortable attire (forced upon her by her friend) – you’ll notice an ode to Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush (1925) as she removes her painful high heels (which she will soon lose), doing a hand and foot jig reminiscent of the dancing bread gag from the above mentioned film, while Thelma must dodge the overly eager Doctor’s below table and dance floor advances (some nice physical comedy).
It is also nice seeing clever writing coming into play, for what at first seems like throwaway moments, such as a gum-chewing cigarette girl, Zasu’s shoes, and the Doctor’s aggressive treatments, they all come back into play later on to great effect.
In Catch-As Catch-Can, Zasu, this time a switchboard operator for a hotel, finds herself unwittingly charming homesick wrestler ‘Stranger’ Sullivan (Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams), which in turn helps his manager and Thelma’s beau Harry (Reed Howes) – as he can’t afford to lose his top client.
With the girls heading to the wrestling event, trouble of course rears its ugly head, as Zasu is told by the wrestler to keep her hat on to declare her love. . . only for it to block the sight lines of the drunk French man sitting behind her – leading him to continuously remove it from her head. There is also a rather troublesome mouse making its rounds through the crowd.
Though not as sharply written as their first short, the centerpiece has to be the wrestling sequences. The opening bout finds some of the dirtiest wrestling you’ll ever see – leg hair pulling, foot biting, and worst of all, tickling. . . it all leading to a pretzel-like conclusion. Also, while a wrestler uses an unusual form of a repetitive pile-driver, a man in the front row uses that head to crack open his walnuts! During all of it, the referee dances around the action. . . again reminiscent of the great Chaplin – both from City Lights (released the same year as this one) and his earlier short film The Champion (1915).
But what makes both shorts so charming is their Pre-Code touch. With early 1930s flair and fashion, these films get away with flashing some skin, pushing the boundary of attire, and building some gags around inappropriate subject matter that would not have been allowed just a few years later with the introduction of the Hays Code. It is hard to deny the charm of the Pre-Code era, from the music and dance, to the public fashion sense, and modernizing technological society. And there’s something about the era that still rings true today – the two women trying to make it in a modern 1930s doesn’t feel all that different from young women trying to make it today in an equally as wild world that is quickly evolving.
With the pairing of a silent film star who made the transition to talkies and a stunning blonde bombshell, it is not hard to see why these two quickly became nationwide stars. Though they only lasted for a short time, Zasu moving on to other things in 1933 while Thelma was paired with Patsy Kelly for twenty-one more shorts before dying under mysterious circumstances in 1935, still ninety plus years on they are remembered as the first successful female comedy duo to take the world by storm. So, take their advice and Let’s Do Things by checking out this special pairing that deserve to be better remembered in the 21st century.