Thelma Todd Movies

The excellent box-office returns for the previous Laurel & Hardy comic operas The Devil's Brother and Babes in Toyland encouraged Hal Roach to cast the team in still another operatic adaptation, a self-styled "comedy version" of William Balfe's The Bohemian Girl. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play members of a gypsy tribe wandering through middle Europe sometime in the early 19th century. As if he hasn't got enough trouble trying to train dimwitted Stan to be a "first-class pickpocket," Ollie is also saddled with a faithless wife (Mae Busch), who is in love with dashing gypsy robber captain Devil's Hoof (Antonio Moreno). While trying to break into the palace of gypsy-hating Count Arnheim (William P. Carleton), Devil's Hoof is captured and flogged. In retaliation, Ollie's wife kidnaps Arnheim's little daughter Arline (Darla Hood of "Our Gang" fame) and leaves the child in Ollie's care, explaining that the baby is his ("I didn't want to tell her who her father was until she was old enough to stand the shock!") Twelve years later, Arline (now played by Jacqueline Wells) has grown into a beautiful young woman who's forgotten all about her aristocratic childhood, except whenever she dreams "she dwelt in marbl'd halls" (from the song of the same name). By coincidence, Arline one day finds herself wandering around the grounds of her ancestral home. She is captured by the Captain of the Guards (James Finlayson) and sentenced to be flogged, whereupon her foster-daddy Ollie and her drink-besotted Uncle Stanley race to her rescue. There's a happy ending for Arline, but not for Stan and Ollie, who wind up the picture with one of their famous "physical distortion" gags. A troubled production, The Bohemian Girl had to be extensively reshot and re-edited after previews because of the sudden (and still unsolved) death of co-star Thelma Todd, who was originally cast as the Gypsy Queen. It was decided out of respect for Todd to retain only one of her musical numbers and to refilm the rest of her scenes with other actors; as a result, Bohemian Girl is one of the patchiest and most uneven of the Laurel & Hardy features. Fortunately, Stan and Ollie's scenes are well up to par, especially the classic bit wherein Stan inadvertently becomes progressively drunker as he tries to bottle a cask of bubbling wine. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This mildly amusing two-reel comedy was released only a month before Thelma Todd's mysterious death. Todd and Patsy Kelly are sharing an apartment but neither of them can come up with the rent and the fed-up landlord tells them to pay up or get out. In desperation, the superstitious Patsy picks up a lamp and rubs it, Aladdin fashion, and wishes for 50,000 dollars. Within seconds, a crook barges into the apartment, tosses the girls a money bag containing 50,000 dollars and says he will be back for it. Patsy immediately snatches up the lamp and wishes that he will never come back. Another crook shows up and shoots the first one dead. As the panicked girls listen through their front door, Patsy swears, "I was only hopin' he'd forget the address!" The cops arrive and force everyone to stay in the building. They keep their eyes on Thelma and Patsy, who they deem particularly suspicious. The killer turns off the lights in the lobby and sneaks the dead body into Thelma and Patsy's apartment. The girls find it there, as do the cops a few moments later. The killer manages to change places with the dead body temporarily but Patsy knocks him out, saving the day. Not one of the Todd/Kelly team's best efforts, unfortunately. This comic short shouldn't be confused with the 1936 picture of the same name. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Based on an obscure stage comedy, the Paramount musical Two for Tonight stars Bing Crosby as would-be composer and playwright Gilbert Gordon. Hired by music publisher Alexander Myers (Maurice Cass) to write a musical for temperamental stage star Lilly Bianca (Thelma Todd), Gordon is less than thrilled to discover that he must complete the job in one week. As he toils away at his task, our hero becomes convinced that he's in love with the troublesome Lilly, causing heartache for his erstwhile sweetheart Bobbie Lockwood (Joan Bennett). The magnificent Mary Boland commands the audience's attention as Gordon's much-married mother. Elements of the plot of Two for Tonight were later satirized in the 1979 spoof Movie Movie. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In their first comedy two-reeler of 1934, the female answer to Laurel and Hardy, Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly, once again play sales girls, this time demonstrating washing machines in a department store window. They fail to get out before the store closes and have to spend the night as window display -- much to the delight of drunken Arthur Housman, who keeps an unsteady vigil on a nearby fire hydrant. In her fourth comedy opposite the vivacious Thelma Todd after replacing ZaSu Pitts, Patsy Kelly had already become a veteran in the style of timeless humor favored by the Hal Roach company. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In his only musical-comedy appearance, Spencer Tracy stars as fast-buck promoter Smoothie King. Our hero's latest scam is to pass off Hollywood extra Wanda Gale (Pat Patterson) and forger Limey Brook (Herbert Mundin) as British nobility, getting both of them prestigious jobs at a movie studio. Eventually Wanda becomes a big star, falling out of love with Smoothie along the way in favor of her leading man Hal Reed (John Boles). But Smoothie takes it all in stride; after all, there's still a world full of chumps and suckers, ripe for fleecing. Future film producer Harold Hecht handled the choreography, while the songs were provided by such noteworthies as Harold Adamson, Burton Lane, Richard Whiting and Gus Kahn. The slaphappy screenplay for Bottoms Up was a joint effort by producer B. G. DeSylva, director David Butler and Tracy's comedy-relief co-star Sid Silvers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A story by Earl Derr Biggers, of Charlie Chan fame, was the springboard for the Monogram melodrama Take the Stand. An abrasive Winchell-type columnist (Jack LaRue) manages to accumulate dozens of enemies, at least one of whom has murder on the mind. While many of the victims of the journalist's vitriol are gathered in his outer office, he is heard delivering his nightly radio broadcast, when suddenly he cries "Don't shoot" -- and a shot is fired. The detective (Russell Hopton) can't figure out "who done it" since all the suspects have air-tight alibis: nor can he run a ballistics test, since there isn't any bullet. The solution to the mystery is one which would be recycled numerous times in the future, most memorably by the Dick Tracy comic strip. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this musical-comedy, a good-hearted composer sees a beautiful woman at a traffic light and is inspired to write a song. They then fall in love. She is a feisty, untamed sort and soon after the wedding, the fireworks begin as they constantly bicker. At one point their rows become so violent that they nearly destroy a house. The plot is based on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

With notable exceptions of Diplomaniacs and Cockeyed Cavaliers, Hips Hips Hooray must rank as the best of RKO-Radio's Bert Wheeler & Robert Woolsey vehicles. Bert and Bob are cast Andy Williams (sic) and Doc Dudley, sidewalk peddlers specializing in flavored lipstick. Falling in love with fashion model Daisy Maxell (Dorothy Lee), Andy offers to teach his and Doc's surefire sales techniques to Daisy's boss Amelia Frisby (Thelma Todd), owner of Maiden America Cosmetics. This requires our two heroes to pose as Big Businessmen, which they do by "borrowing" the office of investment executive Mr. Clark (Spencer Charters). When Clark returns from a wild-goose chase concocted by Doc Dudley, Andy and Doc beat a hasty retreat, inadvertently grabbing a bagful of Clark's money and leaving their sample case behind. Accused of thievery, the boys escape to Kansas but redeem themselves when they accidentally enter a cross-country auto race and drive Maiden America's car to victory. Hips Hips Hooray is a delightfully risque and boundlessly inventive effort, highlighted by two of the finest songs ever to come out of a Wheeler-Woolsey epic: Kalmar and Ruby's "Keep Romance Alive" (sung by Ruth Etting) and "Keep on Doin' What You're Doin' (originally written for Zeppo Marx in 1933's Duck Soup!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this melodrama, a female physician encounters professional and personal turmoil when she finds herself having an affair with an alcoholic peer. He impregnates her and she travels to Paris to have the baby in private. As she is returning to the States, the baby dies from infantile paralysis. This does not prevent her from saving the lives of two other children aboard the same ocean liner. When she returns, she discovers that her lover has divorced his wife and wants to marry her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In their final two-reel comedy, the team of blonde and vivacious Thelma Todd and dowdy and fluttery ZaSu Pitts go Hollywood when Todd is offered a chance to star for director Von Sternheim at the Roaring Lion Studios. (Although produced by Hal Roach, the Todd-Pitts comedies were distributed by MGM). On their way West, the girls wreck an entire train car and Thelma misses her one opportunity for stardom. Little Spanky McFarland took time off from the Our Gang set next door to appear with Todd and Pitts in their final comedy. Veteran comedienne ZaSu Pitts left Roach for feature work, but, happily, the studio found the perfect replacement in caustic Patsy Kelly, who had been discovered in the hit Broadway musical Flying Colors. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Having survived her encounter with the zany team of Thelma Todd and ZaSu Pitts in Show Business (1932), the elegant but snooty Anita Garvin returned for more punishment in this two-reel comedy directed by Gus Meins. Miss Garvin attempts to help the girls out of an economic embarrassment by hiring them to work at Billy Gilbert's taxi-dance emporium. The rest, as they say, is history. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Joe E. Brown is a sailor who hopes to match the accomplishments of his seaman father. Unfortunately, Joe is perhaps the clumsiest gob ever to sail the seven seas. Nor can he steer clear of trouble: Through a series of wholly unbelievable circumstances, Joe finds himself alone on deck of a ship that's about to be shelled for target practice. He redeems himself for this and all past misdeeds when he inadvertently breaks up an espionage ring. Son of a Sailor is typical Joe E. Brown fare, but it's the sort of surefire material the public craved; indeed, at least one theatre manager insisted that Warner Bros. (Brown's home studio) send him more of the same. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide