Pitts and Todd were a 1930s movie comedy duo consisting of actresses ZaSu Pitts and Thelma Todd. Assembled by Hal Roach as the female counterparts to Laurel and Hardy, [1] the duo's members changed over the years and included actresses Patsy Kelly, Pert Kelton and Lyda Roberti.
Roach had previously paired Anita Garvin and Marion Byron in 1928 and 1929, but only three films resulted. [2] Pitts and Todd had both previously worked with Roach in various short films and feature films before filming 17 shorts for Roach from 1931 to 1933.
The 1930 Leroy Shield song "Beautiful Lady" was used as the theme song for the Pitts and Todd films. [3] Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy made a guest appearance in the 1931 short On the Loose. The 1932 short Show Business was directed by Jules White and was later reworked as the 1936 Three Stooges Columbia short A Pain in the Pullman . [4] [5] These popular pre-code shorts featured frequent female physical comedy, human limb twister piles, and mugging from Pitts and Todd, with the latter often "accidentally" losing her clothing. [6]
In mid-1933, Pitts left the Hal Roach studios and Patsy Kelly was hired as Todd's new partner. This team filmed 21 short films until Todd's death at the end of 1935. Kelly was next paired with Pert Kelton for one short, and then with Lyda Roberti for two shorts and one feature film, Nobody's Baby. Roberti died in 1938 at age 31.
In 1941, Pitts and Kelly made their only appearance together in the feature film Broadway Limited . The women echo Laurel and Hardy in one sequence when sharing a bed with a baby and a leaking hot-water bottle. [7]
All short subjects were released by Hal Roach Studios and MGM. Many were directed by Gus Meins and featured Billy Gilbert as the exasperated heavy or comic foil.
Charles Joseph Parrott, known professionally as Charley Chase, was an American comedian, actor, screenwriter and film director. He worked for many pioneering comedy studios but is chiefly associated with producer Hal Roach. Chase was the elder brother of comedian/director James Parrott.
Thelma Alice Todd was an American actress and businesswoman who carried the nicknames "The Ice Cream Blonde" and "Hot Toddy". Appearing in about 120 feature films and shorts between 1926 and 1935, she is remembered for her comedic roles opposite ZaSu Pitts, and in films such as Marx Brothers' Monkey Business and Horse Feathers and a number of Charley Chase's short comedies. She co-starred with Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante in Speak Easily. She also had roles in several Wheeler and Woolsey and Laurel and Hardy films, the last of which featured her in a part that was cut short by her sudden death in 1935 at the age of 29.
The Our Gang personnel page is a listing of the significant cast and crew from the Our Gang short subjects film series, originally created and produced by Hal Roach which ran in movie theaters from 1922 to 1944.
The following is a complete list of the 220 Our Gang short films produced by Hal Roach Studios and/or Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer between 1922 and 1944, numbered by order of release along with production order.
Gordon Douglas Brickner was an American film director and actor, who directed many different genres of films over the course of a five-decade career in motion pictures.
Gus Meins, born Gustave Peter Ludwig Luley, was an American film director. He was born in Frankfurt, Germany.
William Gilbert Barron, known professionally as Billy Gilbert, was an American actor and comedian. He was known for his comic sneeze routines. He appeared in over 200 feature films, short subjects and television shows beginning in 1929.
Leroy Bernard Shield was an American film score and radio composer. He is best known for the themes and incidental music he wrote for the classic Hal Roach comedy short films of the 1930s, including the Our Gang and Laurel and Hardy series.
Patsy Kelly was an American actress. She is known for her role as the brash, wisecracking sidekick to Thelma Todd in a series of short comedy films produced by Hal Roach in the 1930s. Kelly's career continued after Todd's death in 1935 in similar roles.
Our Gang is an American series of comedy short films chronicling a group of poor neighborhood children and their adventures. Created by film producer Hal Roach, also the producer of the Laurel and Hardy films, Our Gang shorts were produced from 1922 to 1944, spanning the silent film and early sound film periods of American cinema. Our Gang is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively natural way; Roach and original director Robert F. McGowan worked to film the unaffected, raw nuances apparent in regular children, rather than have them imitate adult acting styles. The series also broke new ground by portraying white and black children interacting as equals during the Jim Crow era of racial segregation in the United States.
Arthur Housman was an American actor in films during both the silent film era and the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Richard Carlton "Dick" Currier was an American film editor known principally for his work at Hal Roach Studios.
Dorothy Karolyn Granger was an American actress best known for her roles in short subject comedies in Hollywood.
Pick a Star is a 1937 American musical comedy film starring Rosina Lawrence, Jack Haley, Patsy Kelly and Mischa Auer, directed by Edward Sedgwick, produced by Hal Roach and released through Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and filmed by Norbert Brodine. A reworking of Buster Keaton's first talkie, Free and Easy, the film is mostly remembered today for two short scenes featuring Laurel and Hardy.
Hollywood Party, also known under its working title of The Hollywood Revue of 1933 and Star Spangled Banquet, is a 1934 American pre-Code musical film starring Laurel and Hardy, The Three Stooges, Jimmy Durante, Lupe Vélez and Mickey Mouse. It was distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Each sequence featured a different star with a separate scriptwriter and director assigned.
William Edward "Bud" Jamison was an American film actor. He appeared in 450 films between 1915 and 1944, notably appearing in many shorts with The Three Stooges as a foil.
Robert Paul Burns was an American film actor and director. He appeared in more than 200 films between 1908 and 1952 as well as directing 13 films between 1915 and 1916. Burns was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and died in Los Angeles, California. He played Pokes in the Pokes and Jabbs silent comedies of the mid 1910s, with Walter Stull as Jabbs and frequently featuring Babe (Oliver) Hardy. Later supporting Oliver Hardy again in his partnership with Stan Laurel at the Hal Roach Studios in several of their early short comedies and feature films.
James Carmody Lankton, known professionally as James C. Morton, was an American character actor, specializing in short-tempered judges, police officers and officials. He appeared in more than 180 films between 1922 and 1942.
Hal Roach's Streamliners are a series of featurette comedy films created by Hal Roach that are longer than a short subject and shorter than a feature film, not exceeding 50 minutes in length. Twenty of the 29 features that Roach produced for United Artists were in the streamliner format. They usually consisted of five 10-minute reels.