'Done in Oil' is a pretty good picture

Done in Oil (1934)
Starring: Patsy Kelly, Thelma Todd, and Arthur Housman
Director: Gus Meins
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A struggling artist (Todd) is both helped and hindered by her friends (Kelly and Housman) when the three concoct a scheme to manufacture an image for her as a famous French painter who's come to the U.S.

"Done in Oil" is one of the better films teaming Patsy Kelly and Thelma Todd. Instead of trying to make Kelly being loud and obnoxious funny just because she's loud and obnoxious while also subjecting viewers to clumsily executed, overlong slapstick routines, this film goes with situational comedy. In other words, this film avoids the things that drag down many of the entries in this series of films and instead takes the approach that elevated the winners. This is a movie where the comedy grows out of character interaction and satirical commentary that holds up to this day.

This is Patsy Kelly's film. Her character both creates and solves most of the film's conflicts as she bumbles through the story in a hilarious fashion. She and Housman share one of the film's most amusing scenes--where she creates a "work of art" and he critiques it as she goes. Kelly is also very funny in a bit that pokes fun at the "blackface" performances. At this point in the evolution of cinematic entertainment, the once-common practice of white actors dressing up like black people was increasingly viewed as distasteful, and Kelly doing it here is an amusing send-up of those performances. Over all, this film might contain the best performance I've seen from Kelly in this series yet.

Meanwhile, Thelma Todd serves as this picture's "straight man". She has very little to do but to be the launching pad for the antics and ridiculousness of the rest of the characters, but given how ridiculous they get, the island of stability and normality that she provides gives an important contrast. I think this is yet another testament to what a talented actress she was; she commanded the scene when she was called upon to do so, but she was equally adept at staying in the background while others took center stage. Not all actors are capable of that. (All that said, Todd did also get to show her funny side in this picture--at the very beginning as she and Kelly are ending a session where Kelly had been posing as Juliet for Todd as she painted; and toward the middle when she discovers that the ruse of her being a French painter visiting the States has attracted three actual French art critics.)

The only complaint I can mount about "Done in Oil" is that it's another entry in the series where I wish a little more care at been put into the script writing. The action in the kitchen (where Kelly and Housman are trying to stage Todd's fete with the art critics) and that in the living room (where Todd is trying to entertain and ultimately get the three Frenchmen to look at and buy her paintings) feel too disconnected. There should have been more inter-cutting between the two locations and sets of characters.

"Done in Oil" is included in the three DVD collection, together with all the other films in which Patsy Kelly and Thelma Todd shared the screen.