'An All-American Toothache' is agreeable nonsense

An All American Toothache (1936)
Starring: Thelma Todd, Patsy Kelly, Mickey Daniels, Johnny Arthur, and Duke York
Director: Gus Meins
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Thelma (Todd) tricks her co-worker Patsy (Kelly) into having her wisdom tooth pulled by an incompetent dental student (Daniels) who also happens to be the star player of the local college football team--but who will be barred from the big game if he doesn't show himself proficient in his field of study.

"An All-American Toothache" is one of the better films that Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly made together. It's not the funniest, it's not the sweetest, nor is it the cleverest... but it is perhaps the best-structured and tone-consistent of them all. It delivers a complete story--with a beginning, a middle, and end--and while that story is complete nonsense, it is steeped in the nonsense from beginning to end, embraces the nonsense, and the characters even say "yeah, this makes no sense, but let's go with it!"

The main cast all have their moment in the spotlight, and they all play well with and off each other. Thelma Todd is once again relegated mostly to the role of "straight man" while Patsy Kelly gets to play the fool, but there isn't the sense of underlying contempt from Todd toward Kelly's character that tainted other films. This picture also benefits from the fact that instead of featuring several ill-conceived, badly rehearsed slapstick routines--something that plagued the Todd-headlined films even when she was teamed with ZaSu Pitts in the early stages of the series. Instead, it contains one single all-out brawl between dental students and the football team, with Thelma, Patsy, and a professor caught up in the melee.

"An All-American Toothache" would be the last film Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly would make together. Todd's life was tragically cut short in December of 1935, and it wasn't released until after her demise. It's also the very last film Todd can be considered appearing in. She had a large role in the Laurel & Hardy feature film "The Bohemian Girl", but producer Roach had her scenes cut and reshot because of her death. (If he had been able to foresee the morbid obsession with Todd's mysterious passing that continues to the very day, he might have left the film as it was.)

'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.

'Maids in Hollywood' is a fun Todd/Kelly vehicle

Maid in Hollywood (1934)
Starring: Thelma Todd, Patsy Kelly, Eddie Foy Jr., Alphonse Martell, Billy Gilbert, and Constance Bergen
Director: Guy Meins
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

After failing to make it as actress, Thelma (Todd) is on the verge of leaving Hollywood forever when her friend Patsy (Kelly) manages to manipulate circumstances so her friend has one more screen-test... and one final shot at stardom.

I have observed several times that Thelma Todd managed to somehow project poise and grace even when in the most ridiculous and embarrassing circumstances. That is not the case in "Maid in Hollywood." Here, she looks every bit as frazzled as someone whose dream is dying, and becomes every bit as disheveled as you would assume someone would become in the situations she ends up in during the picture. And that is a nice change, because it adds a slightly different flavor to Todd's character in this film.

What's also nice is that one can feel a warmth in the friendship between Todd's and Kelly's characters that's missing in some of their films. Their friendship seems deep enough that it's believable that Kelly goes to the lengths she does to help Todd be successful in achieving her dream. I wonder if that might not be a sign that perhaps this script was originally written for Todd and her previous co-star in this series, ZaSu Pitts? The relationship between those two characters never had the nasty edge that sometimes creeps into the Todd/Kelly pictures, so that could explain the different tone here. (And this is despite Kelly being as loud and brash and as stupidly aggressive as she is in many of these pictures; in other films, this is one of the reasons I felt it hard to believe Todd and Kelly's characters were friends, but here, it works.)

Overall, the script for "Maid in Hollywood" is among the better ones in the Todd headlined comedies, in that it presents a full story with a beginning, middle, end, and even a denouement. This is particularly noteworthy to me, because it feels like a sequel to "One Track Minds" (1933) where Todd's character was traveling to Hollywood with hopes of becoming a movie star, and "One Track Minds" had one of the worst scripts in the series.

The film is made even better by the fact that it sports a talented cast that elevate the good material they are working with excellent performances. The reason I didn't give it a Nine of Ten rating is because much of the physical comedy that Patsy Kelly engages in feels a bit rough and under-rehearsed--it's clunky and repetitive, especially her repeated run-ins with the sound equipment on the film set.

"Maid in Hollywood" is an excellent little comedy, and it is one of several that make the three-disc collection of all of the films Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly made together worth your while.

'Treasure Blues' is lacking

Treasure Blues (1935)
Starring: Patsy Kelly, Thelma Todd, and Arthur Housman
Director: James Parrott
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Patsy (Kelly) inherits a diving suit and a map, so she takes Thelma (Todd) and a drunken sea captain-turned-plumber (Housman) onto the high seas to retrieve a sunken treasure.

"Treasure Blues" is one of weaker Thelma Todd/Patsy Kelly comedies. It's unfocused, not very funny, and, to make matters worse, it extends its good parts to the point where they become bad. This film is so weak that I thought "that's stupid" at some parts that had the live actors behave like they were in a cartoon universe--and I usually LOVE that sort of absurdist humor.

Unfortunately, as cartoonish action is employed in this film, it merely ruins what was up to that point a cute and fairly effective way to make it look like the characters were on the ocean floor--and this was after director James Parrott showed us, yet again, that he'd never seen a gag he couldn't drag out to the point where it went from amusing to lame.

The Four rating I'm giving this film may be a little on the generous side, but the cast members all perform admirably, especially given what they're working with. Todd is amusing, Kelly is charming (which is a rarity, since her onscreen persona in most of these pictures is like nails being dragged across a chalkboard), and Housman is amusing as his usual charicature of a drunk. It's a shame their efforts are taking place within such a poorly made film.

"Treasure Blues" is included with all of the films Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly made together in a single three-DVD collection.

'The Misses Stooge' has a few mild laughs

The Misses Stooge (1935)
Starring: Thelma Todd, Patsy Kelly, Herman Bing, Rafael Storm, and Esther Howard
Director: James Parrott
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Patsy and Thelma (Kelly and Todd) are hired by a magician (Bing), with Patsy being his on-stage assistant and Thelma being his plant in the audience, for a private performance at a high society party

It's commonly stated that the Thelma Todd-starring series of comedies was one of producer's Hal Roach's attempts to recreate the commercial success of the Laurel & Hardy films with a female comedy team. Todd fronted the longest-running of these efforts, and out of the 19 I've watched of them so far, this is first one where I clearly saw the spectre that the ladies and their box office receipts were being measured against; there are several lines spoken by Thelma Todd in this film that sounded exactly like ones that would have been uttered by Oliver Hardy, and Patsy Kelly's distressed fidgeting in a couple of scenes put me in mind of Stan Laurel. Some of the close-ups of Todd making an exasperated face while looking into the camera in some of the other Todd/Kelly pairings have previously reminded me of the reaction close-up shots of Hardy to Laurel's antics in their films, but nothing has felt as Laurel & Hardy-esque as this "The Misses Stooge".

But speaking of close-ups of Todd making exasperated faces, those are, sadly, where she is at her funniest in this picture. I think this may be the first film where I've felt like she was "phoning it in". While there's a set-up that plays to her strengths in portraying elegant women with a sophisticated air or snobbish attitude about them, little ultimately comes of it. She really has very little to do in this film, and, although this has been the case in other pieces, it's always seemed like she was trying to make the most of that very little, that does not seem to be the case here. Except for some reaction shots; those are comedy gold.

While Todd doesn't have much to do in this film, that is not the case with Patsy Kelly. Kelly not only gets to do some funny gags, she also gets to be the more competent of the duo, for the first time in any of the films I've seen in this series. Although she is clearly doing a Stan Laurel impersonation to Todd's Oliver Hardy, her character is clearly a skilled vaudevillian who is trying to support her friend Thelma who has good looks and a high opinion of herself that is not backed up by skill or talent. It's a nice switch from several previous films where it seems like it's Todd carrying her dimwitted friend. Kelly is actually so good in this film that I ended up awarding the film Five Stars as opposed to the Four Stars I almost gave it... because, in the final analysis, "The Misses Stooge" is just not a very good film.

The problem is one that is common to this series: The script isn't very good. While there are strong ideas here, the execution is haphazard and unfocused, and the jokes just aren't all that funny. The cast, aside from Thelma Todd, all try their mightiest to make the best of the weak material, but they can't overcome the unfulfilled potential (a high society setting where no pretentiousness is brought low), inconsistent tone (the magic show moves randomly from actual magic to standard illusions), and that, once again, we've got a story that doesn't get resolved so much as it just ends (admittedly with a very literal bang, but it's still an unsatisfactory one).

Aside from Kelly's strong performance, "The Misses Stooge" is at its best during a sequence when Thelma Todd is floating away like a balloon after the magician loses control of a magic trick, with Patsy chasing after her; and during an ongoing gag about the guest of honor at the party (played by Rafael Storm) being so horny for Thelma, and so stupid that he threatens to ruin the magic show. This "best" is enough to keep you entertained as you watch the film unfold, but only just.

"The Misses Stooge" is included with all of the films Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly made together in a single three-DVD collection.

'The Tin Man' is a so-so comedy that ends strong

The Tin Man (1935)
Starring: Thelma Todd, Patsy Kelly, Clarence Wilson, and Matthew Betz
Director: James Parrott
Rating: Six of Ten Stars


After getting lost on their to a party, Thelma and Patsy (Todd and Kelly) stop to ask for direction at a creepy old mansion. Unfortunately for them, it's home to a woman-hating mad scientist (Wilson) who decides to sic his robot on them. To complicate matters, a killer who escaped police custody (Betz) also sneaks into the house.

If "The Tin Man" shows us anything, it's that the who notion of making fun of "InCels" has existed for many, many years... even if some cute term hadn't been invented for it. Eighty-five years ago, they were poking fun at bitter, socially maladjusted men who lived alone and blamed women for their inability to get dates rather than their own failings, so this is a comedy that has stood the passage of time. It might even be one that both your Social Justice Warrior types and Right Wing whackadoodles can both find entertaining and amusing.

But that's about all they'll be--amused and entertained. While the script is a workmanlike send-up of the Old Dark House and Mad Scientist subgenres of horror films, there aren't a whole lot of jokes and gags will have viewers laughing out loud. For me, the film is at its funniest when the escaped killer (Matthew Betz) is repeatedly subjected to unintentional abuse because he is caught in the crossfire between the girls and the robot sent to menace them. It's not that any of the jokes weren't amusing... they just weren't spectacular. (The funniest bits come toward the end, after the robot goes bezerk due to rash actions by Patsy, meaning the film closes at its best. It's worth your while to stick with it.)

I think this film succeeds primarily on the tightly written story and the strong performances of its cast members. Despite the weak jokes, all four actors are in top form. Additionally, there isn't the sense that Thelma Todd's character looks down upon or otherwise views Patsy Kelly's character with contempt, as it has seemed in some of their other pairings. In "The Tin Man", while Todd is visibly frustrated with Kelly's dimwittedness at times, it seems perfectly believable that they're friends who would want to go to a party together.

"The Tin Man" is one of the short films included in Complete Hal Roach Thelma Todd & Patsy Kelly three-disc DVD collection. It's also one of the films that will make you feel the set is worth your time and money.

'Three Chumps Ahead' is lots of fun

Three Chumps Ahead (1934)
Starring: Patsy Kelly, Thelma Todd, Eddie Phillips, Benny Baker, and Frank Moran
Director: Gus Mein
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Thelma (Todd) is being pursued by a man (Phillips) she believes to be rich, but her roommate Patsy (Kelly) thinks he may be too good to be true. Although Thelma's suitor tries to pawn Patsy off on his brother (Baker), it merely gives Patty a chance to confirm her suspicions... at which point Patsy goes from trying to break up the happy couple to taking advantage the man's deception while exposing him.

"Three Chumps Ahead" is one of the best short comedies starring Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly. It's a tightly scripted where every character is deftly and firmly established through both their actions and dialogue, every joke and gag grows organically from the story, and there isn't a wasted moment or shaky performance to be found. This is a film where each cast member gets to play to their strengths as performers, and where they have good material to work with. Even better, the film has an ending I didn't see coming until its set-up was unfolding (and which I won't comment on, because I'll ruin one of the best parts of the film).

Unlike many of the Thelma Todd-starring shorts (where she first co-starred with ZaSu Pitts and then later Kelly), its female main characters remain the focus of the story and the action. Todd and Kelly even have roughly the same amount of screen-time and importance to the story, with Kelly edging out Todd slightly, because her character is more aggressive and contributes more to moving the story forward. Even better, each actress has material to work with that suits their styles, with Kelly being brash without being so obnoxious or dull-witted that she becomes annoying; Todd getting to be elegant even while doing a prat-fall and flouncing around in response to Kelly's antics.

The only complaints I have with the film boil down to quibbles really, and they did next to nothing to impact the entertainment value of the film.

First, as much as I appreciate the speed with which this film moves, it might move a little too fast at one point: Although it turns out that Patsy had good cause to be suspicious of Thelma's boyfriend, it would have been nice if there had been a little clear evidence that she could have seized on before meeting his brother and, literally, beating the truth out of him. As things stand, Patsy comes across just a little too petty when she appears to be trying to sabotage Thelma's date out of jealousy, or possibly resentment over being treated like a servant. That said, Thelma wouldn't have been treating like a servant if she hadn't been disruptive, so there's a bit of a feedback loop going on.

Second, there's a cramped, impoverished feeling that permeates this film that I haven't noticed in previous installments in this series. The apartment and restaurant sets feel so claustrophobic that the end result reminded me of some of the lower-budget Poverty Row films I've watched over the years. I know part of this is by design--Todd and Kelly's characters are presented as working class, and Todd's beau can't afford to take her anywhere but a hole-in-the-wall establishment--but I wonder if this was also a reflection of budget concerns. I have read that these films were not earning the level of money that producer Hal Roach was hoping for, so maybe the team making them was receiving less money to work with as well? I'll have to see what develops as I keep watching. (I will be reviewing one Thelma Todd vehicle every week through the end of 2019, including several more of the ones she made with Patsy Kelly.)

Finally, Thelma Todd keeps her clothes on. While I never mind seeing an attractive woman in very little, it's usually twice as fun when it's Todd who's stripping down, because of the way she usually manages to still retain an air of elegance and dignity. Plus, some of her funniest bits have been performed in a slip or dressing gown. (I can't be too unhappy that Todd remains fully clothed, as there really isn't an excuse for it anywhere in the story, and this film is so strong because it's driven by the story rather than being a cobbled-together series of gags as some of them are. Of course, Them could also be remaining fully clothed, because by the time this film was released in 1934, the Hays Production Code was in full effect, and filmmakers had to be more careful with the raciness.)

"Three Chumps Ahead" is one of the short films included in Complete Hal Roach Thelma Todd & Patsy Kelly three-disc DVD collection. It's also one of the films that will make you feel the set is worth your time and money.

'Babes in the Goods' doesn't quite deliver

Babes in the Goods (1934)
Starring: Thelma Todd, Patsy Kelly, Arthur Housman, and Jack Barty
Director: Gus Meins
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A pair of sales clerks (Todd and Kelly) are pressed into service by their boss (Barty) to demonstrate home appliances in the department store's display window and ordered to keep doing it until all spectators are gone. Unfortunately for them, they gain the adoring attention of a drunk (Housman) who refuses to leave...

"Babes in the Goods" is another somewhat disappointing entry in the Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly series of short-form comedies. It has a nice idea at its core--shop-workers getting locked in a window display that's set up like rooms in a house--but what it does with that idea just isn't very funny. Todd and Kelly are as good as they've ever been--with Kelly being better, because she is a little more restrained here than she has been in previous films--but they can only do so much with the material they were given to work with. It's really a shame, because they're actually the main focus of the picture, unlike in some of these shorts where there's so much going on that Todd and Kelly (or Pitts, in those where she was the co-star) are crowded out of their own story.

The film is at its funniest when Arthur Housman is doing his drunk routine, especially when reacting to poor Thelma and Patsy in the window (with the bit where he sees Thelma undress in silhouette and then interact with a mannequin being the peak).

"Babes in the Goods" is one of the short films included in the Complete Hal Roach Thelma Todd & Patsy Kelly DVD collection.  

'Air Fright' has comedic highs and lows, but mostly stays aloft

Air Fright (1933)
Starring: Patsy Kelly, Thelma Todd, Wilfred Lucas, Don Barclay, and Billy Bletcher
Director: Gus Meins
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Thelma (Todd) gets her brash girlfriend, Patsy (Kelly), a job as an air hostess at the same company she works for. Their first assignment together is on a plane where an experimental parachute emergency system is to be tested. It perhaps goes without saying, but things go wrong...

"Air Fright" was the third film that Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly made together, and it was the best up to this point. The script is the strongest yet, the humor works for the most part, Patsy Kelly's character is more hapless and a fish-out-of-water than annoying and stupid (as she was in "Beauty and the Bus"). There was even some comedic action and suspense mixed in when our heroines end up dangling from the airplane in a tangled parachute.

Although an improvement on the previous films featuring Todd and Kelly, when things didn't work here, they really didn't work. Kelly delivers a number of one-liners that flop to the ground harder than someone jumping from a plane without a parachute, and, once again, the film's pacing is off to the point where the ending feels like the last few minutes of the picture may be missing.

It should be noted that this is basically Patsy Kelly's picture. Todd basically plays the straight man while she fires off jokes and causes chaos; it's said that Hal Roach was shooting for a Laurel & Hardy vibe, but with women when it came to these pictures, but here Todd & Kelly come off like a Abbott & Costello-type team... but without Todd being the sort of jerk toward Kelly that Abbott so often was to Costello in their pictures. I point this out, because, although I enjoyed Kelly in the film, I understand that she has her detractors. Those who can't stand Kelly, but who still want to enjoy Todd--who is once again fun to watch, even if she doesn't get to stretch her comedic muscles much--may want to save this film until they have nothing else to watch.

"Air Fright" is one of 21 short films that Todd and Kelly made together, and it can be found included in the three DVD set The Complete Hal Roach Thelma Todd & Patsy Kelly Collection.

'Backs to Nature' is mildly amusing

Backs to Nature (1933)
Starring: Thelma Todd, Patsy Kelly, and Don Barclay
Director: Gus Meins
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Patsy (Kelly) convinces her friend Thelma (Todd) that a camping trip is the best, most relaxing way for them to spend their vacation. This turns out to not be the case.

"Backs to Nature" was the second teaming of Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly as Hal Roach's "female version of Laurel & Hardy." This outing feels like a step down from their debut, either because of a lazy script, or because of the passage of time. With one exception, all the jokes and routines are what you'd expect to find in a comedy about camping--difficulties setting up the tent, mishaps while chopping firewood, disasters around the camp fire, and prowling bears. Even worse, all of these standard jokes are in their most basic forms with no twists or elaborations. (Patsy cuts down a tree, it falls on the tent with Thelma in it. Moving onto the next gag.) I don't know whether it's that the writers were being lazy or that the 85 years that's passed since this film was released, but things are just a little too straight-forward here. I suspect it's the former, since the film just sort of ends without closing any story arcs, without even really ending. I had the same issue with the final film Todd made while teamed with ZaSu Pitts, so I'm thinking the blame here is lazy writing.

Despite the weak material the actors are working with, "Backs to Nature" is amusing to watch, due to the antics of Patsy Kelly and the reactions of Thelma Todd. As the film unfolds, you will find yourself rooting for Patsy to get something right, because she is trying so hard to give her friend the relaxing camping trip she promised, even if you know she's never going to succeed. Todd's character is the one around which the film revolves, but it's Kelly's boundless enthusiasm that makes it worth watching. (Although Todd once again manages to always look glamorous, even while being chased up a tree by a bear.)

That said, despite the appealing nature of Patsy Kelly's character, the way Todd's character interacts with her ends up being one of the elements that undermines the quality of this film, and, once again, makes me blame lazy writers rather than the passage of time for its failings. There is literally only one moment of warmth and camaraderie between the two, with almost every other interaction being one where Todd is irritated or angry, and Kelly is making excuses or apologizing. Despite both actresses being appealing and playing sympathetic characters, I couldn't buy that these characters would barely tolerate each other at work, let alone be friendly enough to go on vacation together.

It the final analysis, "Backs to Nature" is at the low end of average; it's not terrible but there are better films to spend your time on. It is one of 21 short films included in the three DVD set, The Complete Hal Roach Thelma Todd & Patsy Kelly Comedy Collection, (only 18 of which actually feature Todd as well as Kelly), and it's neither an argument for or against getting the collection. It's harmless filler, at best.

A fresh start for the Todd-starring comedies

Beauty and the Bus (1933)
Starring: Patsy Kelly, Thelma Todd, Don Barclay, and Eddie Baker
Director: Gus Meins
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

The car that Thelma (Todd) wins in a drawing proves to be bad luck for any driver who shares the road with her on the way home.

After ZaSu Pitts' contract with the Hal Roach Studio expired, and she moved onto other things, Patty Kelly became Thelma Todd's teammate in Roach's attempt at creating the female equavilent of Laurel & Hardy's box office success. "Beauty and the Bus" was the first of nearly 20 shorts for the new pair, and it's a bit of a mixed bag.

Story-wise, this film is a fast-paced series of interconnected and ever-escalating gags that take the main characters from situations that are bad, to worse, to disastrous. On that front, this is a promising start for what I hope will make the second half of the Year of the Hot Toddy a lot of fun. (In case you just arrived in these parts, I set myself the goal of watching a film featuring Thelma Todd every week of 2019, because I noticed my "To Be Watched" stack had somehow come to contain an abundance of them.)

One of the strengths of this film is that, although the strong and plentiful supporting cast gets to be just as funny as Kelly and Todd (with Eddie Baker as a traffic cop being foremost among them), the main characters remain at the center of the action instead of being crowded out of the story as happened in some of the films with Pitts and Todd. On the other hand, though, as much fun as her energetic performance was to watch, I found Patsy Kelly's character supremely annoying: She's aggressively stupid to the point where you can't help but wonder why anyone--let alone Todd's character who comes across as slightly aloof--would want to be anywhere near her. Kelly is literally the catalyst for everything that goes wrong for Todd in this picture, including taking her into a ticket and escalating a minor fender-bender into a multi-car accident and full-fledged traffic jam.

Ultimately, though, this film is a lot of fun. The dynamic between Todd's character and Kelly's character is very different than that between Todd and Pitts--it seems to me there was almost always a touch of the genteel in them that is completely absent here. Of course, when you have a stereotypical, short-tempered Fighting Irish(wo)man rampaging through the film, there isn't any room to be ladylike. I look forward to seeing how this team develops. (Although I will probably watch a few of the 10 or so Todd/Pitts shorts I've yet to see before I get back to this line-up.)

 "Beauty and the Bus" is one of 21 short films included in the Complete Hal Roach Thelma Todd & Patsy Kelly DVD collection.