The Old Bull (1932) Review // Applying To ZaSu Pitts And Thelma Todd Films Part 9

The short subjects in this series tend to cluster in groups of eight, in terms of when they were released. Much like a tv sitcom, there are breaks over the summer. The first Thelma and ZaSu short, Let’s Do Things, is an outlier as it was filmed in the production block for The Boy Friends apparently. Excluding Things (and the three silent shorts that don’t feature any of the 30s characters), there are forty Girl Friends shorts. Thus, there are five “seasons” of the series and The Old Bull is the end of season one.

It’s frustrating when it seems like only some of these movies got much love and care, and the others are just filler. On The Loose, Sealskins, and Strictly Unreliable are the installments that really work. Let’s Do Things, Catch-As Catch-Can, and The Pajama Party have some degree of quality, but also some big issues. War Mamas, Red Noses, and this one collapse under the weight of the problems. Admittedly, there is at least some degree of good humor and rewatchability in all of them. It’s still hard to appreciate when literally at the very beginning of the season one finale, Thelma is mumbling. Note when she says, “I better drive, ZaSu.” The initial gag is also under rehearsed, just feeling like an uncomfortable argument.

On top of that is the bad greenscreen. Although it is pretty funny, it ruins the chance of taking anything away from the scene other than how bad it looks. While applying logic to the greenscreen is fruitless, as the car doesn’t even look level to the ground, there’s one point where a cow is in a spot where logically it would have been hit due to its placement when the car lines up with it, though it doesn’t fall down or in any way respond to the car that’s flying by. The continuity and editing is just as sloppy and thoughtless as always. While there sometimes is charm to it, that can’t be said here. It just seems like needless mistakes.

There’s of course good gags. “And you ran right through the door!” “But the door wasn’t open?” Something about a potted plant unexpectedly hitting Thelma in the head got a big laugh. Its suddenness and unexpectedness, especially when compared to the rest of this short, leaves it a standout. Even beyond that, it shows that women can get into this type of violent and brash comedy just as well as men can. The gags with the cat are very good, especially the last one. It’s such a ridiculous and creative idea that it works. Another fun moment is a cow’s moo that obviously sounds like a person imitating a cow. The duck on ZaSu’s rump also got a laugh. As is typical, there are moments for us to see some lady skin. The scene of Thelma removing oats from ZaSu’s stocking seems designed just to get us some skin. Foot fetishists, your day has come!

So many of the gags boil down to “Let’s do something inconspicuously”, then things happen noisily or otherwise chaotically. You’d think they could change that up a little, so it’s not so obvious it’s all one joke. Thelma, as has happened before, badgers and berates ZaSu like she hates her, with particular viciousness only in the odd scene here and there. It comes off as meanspirited and not even funny. The pacing and story improve when everything has been set up and the beats go along faster. These shorts are more about quick comedy, so it’s frustrating when they’re pointlessly slow. It’s also easier to forgive them when they don’t let up. The shoddiness never goes away, it is just sometimes fast. That’s again proven because there’s not much of an ending, with a line of dialogue from ZaSu obviously being cut off unnaturally, like someone had to trim it and wasn’t paid much to!

SPOILERS

The lion going into the girls’ car follows the common rule of old two-reelers, that the most absurd thing ever can happen, as long as it’s funny. It is amusing that there’s not even a joke that results in the lion going there, it just walks in. While obviously layering gags is preferable, where every scene provides at least the attempt at humor, there’s something to be admired about the shamelessness on display. For whatever this is worth, when the farmer finds our heroes with the car, he doesn’t shoot them, even though he said he would. Yet again, unnatural things happen in order to justify the narrative and mainly the humor. Him earlier threatening to shoot them establishes the stakes, but if he actually did, that wouldn’t be funny most likely.

OVERVIEW

Thelma and ZaSu don’t bring as much personality to their performances as they normally do, with the short seemingly being more about situational gags that come from the story instead of what the actors are doing. Still, great acting isn’t that necessary here, though it would’ve been nice. The Old Bull is more middle of the road. It’s not too bad, but not exceptional. Patsy Kelly certainly could’ve gotten more mileage from it than ZaSu did.

Taking in season one of The Girl Friends as a whole, while it’s understandable and to be expected that a series would need time to get on its feet, it’s far too easy for Roach shows to really lose focus. That being said, there are sometimes hilarious moments or even whole episodes that are great, it’s just a little tiresome when you have to deal with extremely shoddy filmmaking and the poor comedy. While I am not in this camp, some really like the ridiculous moments of discontinuity and other flubs. It’s certainly easy to see how people like that. You have to to some degree, as that’s so constant. Still, there is more to be taken from the performers and their characters.

While possibly not intentional, Thelma the character gives off a sense of insecurity that she’s not aware of. This could explain why she hangs around ZaSu, because ZaSu is more obviously ridiculous and idiotic, thus making Thelma look good by comparison. In Bull, Thelma tells someone they have no money, in an attempt to get out of trouble. This means either she’s lying and is thus willing to lie about that, or she’s not and she somehow has the ability to own nice clothing. Probably for the sake of changing up the look of the series, the girls wear a lot of different clothes, which in-universe suggests they’re buying them, possibly for social clout. To sum up Thelma, in a situation, she will try to make herself as social as possible, then fail, or possibly succeed by embracing the weird part of her she wants to suppress. Things like the clothing could be her attempt to fit in.

Thelma the actor carries this very well, though that might be more down to the writing, especially considering that these shorts probably are not intended to have continuity. Thelma consistently supplies laughs every installment, though there are some signs of phoning it in or she isn’t always given the best of material. However, she simply seems good enough at rolling with these punches to still come off well. Considering how often the distress of her character comes across, you can about imagine that’s intentional, and also notably not like Oliver Hardy, who she is sometimes compared to. She seems stuck to holding an image of having feminine grace and class that cannot be applied to Hardy.

It’s always strange when ZaSu, whose actress is twelve-and-a-half years older than Thelma’s, yells the latter’s name like she’s a lost child wanting her mother. While ZaSu is consistently obviously out of place in society and unsociable, she lacks a sense of core characterization that Thelma has. As is common with these types of characters, sometimes they’re just a little dim and other times idiotic to absurd degrees depending on the episode. That “lost child” characterization is not really there early on, popping up later as an ill-advised constant in her performance for the later episodes. It damages the ability to see them as real people or people you could imagine liking each other, as it’s like Thelma is chaperoning ZaSu around. If they committed to that idea, it might work better, but it seems there are times they really are supposed to be friends, such as in parts of Red Noses.

While ZaSu has turned in some great performances, mainly in the wonderful Strictly Unreliable, when she usually doesn’t seem to have much grasp on her character or the material, she can dish out a performance lesser than that of Todd’s. Based on how often she repeats her mannerisms and body language, it seems she might be thinking of this as a job instead of giving it her all, where maybe she’d think the audience would want less diversity in her acting. She has been great in other media, so it’s not like she can’t act. ZaSu also doesn’t gel with Thelma, with the two lacking chemistry and often doing comedy independently of the other. This is especially obvious when compared to the later Patsy Kelly, who is perfect with Thelma. While Patsy and Thelma seem like they care about each other and help each other at times, Thelma and ZaSu pretty much never seem like they’re having fun or would be worse off alone.

To sum her up, the ZaSu character will stay quiet and off to the side, only to be forced into the action and in response say funny things. She can be best compared to Zeppo Marx. He generally doesn’t care for the action, but is very tolerant of it, but is lit up by things that engage him. He inexplicably associates with kooky characters, with a potential reason being shown when he does slightly weird things himself. Both also often scream of lost potential. I get the impression that if those three could pick their ideal situation, Thelma would be an uncompromised socialite, Zeppo would live in an amplified, comedic world, though with generally similar things to what you’d expect a 30s man to want, and ZaSu would live in a void where nothing is happening, particularly nothing bad. That push and pull between someone that wants to be meeting people and someone that wants to be separated is a great idea, but it’s just not used, essentially because they usually are put in foreign areas that neither want to be in and they make practically no attempt to act like they’re liking it. If ZaSu played more into “I just want to be in my void”, that’d make for a much more interesting character.

Despite all this, Strictly Unreliable is probably the best short here, and it is very ZaSu-heavy and Thelma-light. That just goes to show that ZaSu can pack a punch. Ranking the shorts of this “first season” would go: War Mamas, Red Noses, The Old Bull, The Pajama Party, Catch-As Catch-Can, On The Loose, and a tie of Sealskins and Strictly Unreliable. Despite that some of these are pretty lame and might not even focus on one of the girls heavily, they all have enough laughs to be worth a rewatch, but that might just be because I love ZaSu Pitts and especially Thelma Todd so much that it’s nice to see them in anything, especially something with reasonably fast pacing. However, anyone not a fan of either of the girls or the Hal Roach style of comedy but does like classic comedy should only stick to the best of the bunch.

No Limit (1931) Review

No Limit spends no time getting to its point. Almost immediately we are greeted to scantily-clad women. Even when they’re dressed decently, there’s more “thrills” of tight clothing and women having big personalities… Especially early on, our lead Clara Bow seems determined to show that she can be funny and she does succeed at that. She really creates a presence and is able to get laughs when needed, even with her vocal, despite apparent awkwardness in switching to sound films. It’d be nice if this movie continued being this screwball comedy, possibly about her character of “Bunny” getting into shenanigans. However, as things become more serious, issues arise.

Bunny’s friend ‘Dodo’, played by Dixie Lee, has no personality and does nothing, which goes to emphasize this movie probably just following tropes. “The friend” is a very common thing to pop up. Bunny at one point describes something that should’ve been filmed and shown. What is described would’ve hit much harder if we could see the characters live out that moment and let us feel it. Still, the acting is good enough that the scene works better than you might expect. More consequently, the pacing is very janky. It’s a little fun seeing Bunny and Dodo peel each piece of what’s going on, but a little more bite, such as better pacing or things we’re learning would help at keeping it engaging and also getting us to care more.

The pacing is especially bizarre with someone familiar with modern cinema. A montage will quickly fly us through quite a lot of time that would best be spent actually focusing on the players. Scenes will end suddenly after a big revelation or just generally. When we aren’t getting these sorts of scenes, the movie is very slow. The point of being here beyond the opening thrills seems to be to sell you on this character drama. That character-focus only really works if we’re sold on the characters, but this story just wants to keep things going so we can’t see things like how everyone reacts to information. A montage at the end is particularly fast. There’s little chance to breathe when something big happens. Sometimes characters are in very different states than how we last saw them.

Despite the issues, there is one notable positive. Even dramatically, Clara Bow packs a punch, with you really feeling the emotion in her voice. The poor script, which seems to not include character moments needed to get us to understand the dynamics, makes these scenes less effective than they could be. A highlight is when Bunny discovers something and has this look on her face of shock and anguish and uncertainty, but it’s all mostly composed on the outside. “Oh yeah, I hit him with a rocking chair.” Bow’s delivery of that line is so charming and characterized that it’s a shame she didn’t do more sound films, or even just radio.

While Norman Foster as Douglas Thayer, and to a lesser extent Bow, doesn’t seem to get this material, he is pretty decent at putting a little passion into his weak role. Doug the character doesn’t transition much from one state to the other as much as he just seems to be whatever he needs to be. The more minor and comedic characters are fine at being that. One favorite line from one is: “Olson, your uncle was unique.” “My golly, is that why he never got married?” Very subtle. The directing of the scene of Bunny sitting on a counter is a little more dynamic than the generally very flat movie. That flatness really does stipend the story, as it becomes numbing.

SPOILERS

Doug did nothing to either earn Bunny’s love or get us to think they should be together. He spends quite a lot of time disrespecting her boundaries, only for Bunny to strangely and suddenly be madly in love with him. Why would she change like that? Such a thing makes for an unrelatable and weak protagonist. A scene of Bunny almost in tears over the thought of Doug not loving her is particularly sad, because even at that point (close to the end of the film) he was with her just for personal gain and not love.

OVERVIEW

No Limit can be appreciated for a few good performances, but the story is so weak, and you’re supposed to care about it so much, that it’s hard to take much from it. Also, just for anyone watching this for Thelma Todd, she’s barely in it. She’s alright. Her dress was beautiful, though.

Half Shot Shooters (1936) Review // The Three Stooges #18

After a series of some of the funniest Stooges shorts so far, Half Shot Shooters suggests a new normal. There’s fewer standout moments than the best of the series, but the short still does offer many laughs. The group dynamic is also noticeably improved over the first few shorts. Some say that the second Columbia adventure, Punch Drunks, sets the formula perfectly, but that does feature some early installment awkwardness. We’re at a much better point now, with Larry getting more lines and Moe treated as the focal point instead of Curly. The boys now seem like they know each other as well as their back hands, so it’s extremely enticing to just see them perform. This short does unfortunately fall a little flat due to the lack of good comic ideas that sometimes afflicts these films, especially coming off of one like Movie Maniacs and before Disorder in the Court.

Favorite moments of this installment are the gang’s funny introduction of them sleeping. It’d be nice if every short of theirs gave them a potent entrance to the action, especially because the first three Columbias, for all their problems, do give us a fantastic first impression. Larry gets a quality line with, “Pipe down, you guys, you’re spoiling the whole war for me.” Curly later has, “For two cents I’ll punch you right in the face!” “Well, here’s the two cents.” “Well, I raise my price.” The scene of the Stooges singing is another highlight, both comedically and in demonstrating an obvious real talent for music. It would’ve been nice to hear them record songs, even serious ones.

Sgt. MacGillicuddy, played by Stanley Blystone, is very effective as what could pass as a “straight man”. He is good at working off of the Stooges’ energy, with him going through a subtle, but powerful character arc. If this episode was longer or more focused, it would’ve been nice to have more of his “arc”, as this really interesting idea of the state of his character is seemingly an afterthought. A good way to change up the formula of the series is to have things like a short that is more about “how the Stooges affect someone’s life” or treating the leads more as individuals. Probably because they lacked knowledge of where things would go, the first two Columbias benefit from this. Especially Larry stands out, due to being emphasized as the straightest man of the three…

Curly thought it a good idea to hit a fly on Moe’s face with a frying pan. This, and other moments, implies that Curly likes being hit by Moe. Moe and Larry kiss, which proved to just be setup for another gay Curly joke. Despite that, Larry ultimately got that kiss. Thus, the body count for the boys this time around is zero for Curly, one for Moe, and two for Larry. Moe criticizes someone for slapping faces, seeming morally opposed to it. The obvious contradiction is never acknowledged and may have been the result of poor writing, but it still really works here. It’s funny and in-keeping with the character that he’d be so blind to this. Don’t ask me how, but it really tickles me that Moe is a democrat.

SPOILERS

Sadly, the rule of three isn’t used after Larry and Curly get black eyes. I was expecting Moe to get one, probably as the final joke. Headcanon could prevail and say he got one after he was killed, not that the state of his eyes is made explicit. It’s a little surreal to see the Stooges casually die, especially when tropes like that are more associated with the more explicitly anarchic comedy of something like The Young Ones. That being said, that sense of pure insanity is definitely present in The Three Stooges. There’s also the impression that no one is aware of just how different this is, as if they weren’t trying to be anarchic, that just happens to come off. In some ways, they even are crazier than the Marx Brothers, because they have that sense of innocence and also far more installments, so more chances to change things up. This is the eighteenth Stooge film and that’s more than there are Marx films.

There arguably is a message here, about power dynamics between desensitized authority figures and the people hurt by them. A common fantasy of the latter, which is shown here, is to get revenge and beat up that leader. Later on, the leads are prompted to steal food from someone, because they’re hungry. The person then retaliates by getting them signed up for the army. This represents the mentality of hot heads and lack of empathy causing these sorts of problems to escalate. When Curly discovers that they’re all signing up for the army, he tries to stop the others, but the brash temperment of Moe keeps him from doing it. If you say he was afraid of getting hit, he is constantly doing things that get him hit, so it might be more down to not wanting to break routine.

MacGillicuddy is able to do torturous things to the boys, because they have no power. He only gets in trouble when he accidentally hurts another official. Thus, the rules aren’t about protecting people as they are punishing those that hurt the wrong people. The Stooges being made hard of hearing shows how pointless and cruel this behavior often is, simply making life harder for everybody. We’re reminded at the two-thirds mark that what they’ve really wanted is food. It gets to the point where they seem willing to do anything for it, even be tormented. That being said, you could say that if they understand that they’ll be tormented no matter what, why not eat? Thus, MacGillicuddy’s punishment stops meaning as much. This dynamic also pushes him to psychopathy, where he is ultimately delighted to kill the group, as if they aren’t products of their circumstance and instead are inherent creatures of evil that deserve to suffer.

OVERVIEW

The more dramatic change in scenery, with it feeling like gags from multiple scripts were culled together here, makes for a film that feels strange pacing-wise, but this is in fact an advantage. It serves as a curve ball to make the Three Stooges and specifically Half Shot Shooters a little surreal. It’s only a shame that the material wasn’t better, though it’s perfectly fine for what it is and if you like the Stooges and want at least decent comedy, there’s no reason not to watch this one.

The two-Stooge kiss is obviously the superior one.

Get Your Man (1927) Review

Get Your Man is the type of movie that really lives and dies on the strength of its performers. Story is not always so important. This is most obvious with comedies, where a good entertainer can still get laughs even if the plot is bad. However, this is still very true for dramas, where the acting has the ability to make things fresh. And to be frank, the male lead of Robert has the personality of a plastic bag. While even his writing leaves much to be desired, there are still many opportunities for actor Buddy Rogers to do a little more, but he simply doesn’t. Fairing a little better is Clara Bow as the wonderfully named Nancy Worthington. The highlights of the movie are from her. Nancy’s shocked look on her face when she sees Robert is glorious.

Nancy is far too passive. The main issue with this film is that its main character feels like just another player, especially when Clara Bow is capable of more. Bow doesn’t do a bad job, but she isn’t at all memorable. Admittedly, she does show some intelligence, charm, and comedic chops near the end. While those moments are fun, it’s just too little too late. It seems some people have found Nancy untrustworthy, notably Robert. This doesn’t amount to much, which is unfortunate, as it could’ve made for a juicy problem for her to get her teeth into. This woman is hanging around doing nothing. What’s her deal?

Though reels two and three are missing, the story still mostly makes sense. There’s a few points where you wonder if something would make sense with those scenes, namely Nancy and Robert’s relationship. However, their dynamic doesn’t really grow in the surviving reels four-six. Based on these sorts of films, run of the mill 20s romance-dramas, they usually have a scene or two to get the characters into each other and then they act like they’ve known each other to a much greater extent than they have.

Some charming parts, though this is very much down to personal taste, are when a dog is being washed and the lines, “Back home, a father is lucky if he’s allowed to pick the attorney for the divorce.”, “Then turn [Redacted due to spoilers] back into circulation – and get your man!”, and “If I were less polite and you knew more French, I’d tell you a few things!”. To say something nice of Buddy Rogers, he sometimes makes really cool facial expressions. The most entertaining part of the movie is the museum of electronic wax sculptures, to boot with them, Clara Bow walking around in a marvelous fur coat. Even when old movies aren’t good, they usually at least supply some fabulous clothing.

The few comedy scenes were probably intended to get big laughs, but they are so out of step tonally, feeling forced in, that they don’t work. Bow also doesn’t seem so adept at the material as other stars of the day, though she certainly could be much worse and stands out compared to the other elements of this movie.

SPOILERS

The main conflict is trying to get Robert’s father to let him break tradition and marry who he wants. After initially being very stubborn about this, he changes his mind extremely fast over very little. It is a problem until it isn’t. While the movie tries to explain this, it could’ve been handled better, like if the person who convinced the father was able to blackmail him. “This is the end. You have killed my faith in women forever. I am leaving for Africa to shoot lions. I hope I never come back.” is a pretty funny letter, though that was not intentional.

“For you, love is just another engagement to break. Well, you’ll never get a chance to break one with me!” is a really badass line. When Nancy has orchestrated the situation to her desire, she has a beautifully sly face that brings with it confidence and charm, like people were right to think her a nuisance, but she doesn’t care. Representative of what director Dorothy Arzner would become known for, the absurdity of social rules is used against it when Nancy causes trouble in order to get a desired outcome. That theme was ripe with potential, like if the father only agreed to break his son’s engagement after it’s put against another pointless social rule, where he can’t have both. It’s cute that after Robert and Nancy kiss at the end, they go back to their rooms, as if to insinuate that they are to go plan their lives. Things don’t just end with the start of romance.

OVERVIEW

There’s an unintended creepiness to the film decay. A notable moment is when Nancy kisses someone and the decay blacks out her eyes. Maybe someone should watch this and other decayed silents to an album like Everywhere at the End of Time? This flick has no punch, but is maybe okay if you like anyone involved. I watched this with a fan-added Scott Joplin score and it fit well.

Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road (2021) Documentary Review

Despite how many documentaries, biographies, and otherwise depictions of the story of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys there are, they generally falter on capturing the fact that we’re talking about real human beings and not mythical figures. The reasons for this problem are ripe for discussion, but one I will note is that there’s often very little time. The biopic The Beach Boys: An American Family is three hours long and only covers around 1961-1974, but still suffers from not showing enough from even that time frame. Imagine if it bothered going further? While brevity is never a guaranteed deathblow, Long Promised Road does not escape that, feeling a little bullet point. It covers the most surface level stories, but admittedly with a few nice insights from Brian and overall a few good surprises.

Brian gets buttered up a lot. This documentary feels extremely formulaic. Save for a few moments, this could be made by a computer. There’s far too much willingness to treat Brian like he can do no wrong, while a few lows are tossed in for the sake of not making that as obvious as it could be. Brian’s first wife Marilyn Rovell was not interviewed. That may have been done consciously so as to not have her say anything negative about him. Elton John says Brian should receive accolades for his personal life, as in being a family man. Not to say this story is true, but he must not have heard when Marilyn claimed Brian gave their young children cocaine (Brian has also corroborated that).

Brian seems uncomfortable. One moment that feels especially awkward is when he’s really praising interviewer Jason Fine. You either get the impression Brian feels forced to say it or he’s like a scared child clinging to a relative. At one point the two are even holding hands. In the studio with his backing band, there’s a sense of this feeling staged, like everyone and everything is about too perfect. You can imagine he probably did not want to do this documentary, so seeing him here feels wrong, especially when the camera watches Brian tearing up when he learns of Jack Rieley’s death, which feels exploitative.

A common problem with documentaries about musicians is unfortunately caught here… Elton John insinuates that Brian Wilson is better than the Beatles, because the Beatles were produced by George Martin, while Brian produced himself (during the most well-known era of his career). This constant comparing to the Beatles basically proves that the Beatles are better, at least in a cultural sense, because that’s what people go to. I say this as someone who likes many music bands and artists more than the Beatles.

There’s a few fun moments here and there. It’s amusing to see Dennis sweet talk a female interviewer talking about the music, unable to not sugar up ladies. Taylor Hawkins amusingly speaks about Dennis quite a bit before quickly saying something about Brian, as if forgetting this was a documentary about the latter. It’s pretty hilarious when Eugene Landy says only two quick sentences before there’s a sudden cut to his face as vocal harmonies start playing, but not for the right reason.

The best parts of the film are Brian talking about his brothers and the old footage. It’s also nice to see Brian listening to the music he or his brothers made, contemplating it. Brian discussing Dennis and them doing cocaine together makes for a nice break from how glossy this film is, especially in how Brian doesn’t seem to think much of Dennis’ self-destructive behavior, with him lightly calling him a “crazy” guy. That actually tells us a lot about Brian. He has criticized his own drug use, at least in the past, so imagine the mentality that would lead him to not fret much on his brother that died essentially from drug abuse? It’s also a lot of fun seeing footage of Brian’s 1976 birthday, which features celebrities and touching when we see Dennis and Carl showing their affection for Brian. The brothers also show they really care about him in some nice concert footage.

OVERVIEW

It’s odd that at the end of the film, when Brian and his band are performing “Long Promised Road”, most of the vocals and footage are of the band members and not Brian. Why not show a Brian-focused video and song, especially one he wrote? There’s been quite a few discredited attempts to detail the story of the Beach Boys and Brian WIlson. Long Promised Road seems destined to be the next in line. Especially when the Beach Boys’ music comes into the public domain, hopefully we’ll get a more accurate detailing of the lives of this band, probably from the fans. In terms of its own proper value, it dug up a few fun bits of footage, gave us some stories of Brian with his brothers, and is a document of the later years of Brian’s life.

I’m not sure if I ever heard Brian curse before, so that was novel. Also, hopefully Jason Fine didn’t look at his phone while driving, which he may have done at one point, when Brian asked him to put on a song.