Pan Handlers

Pan Handlers (1936)

** (out of 4)

This Girl Friends short was the first one after the death of Thelma Todd. Patsy Kelly continued with the series and they brought in Pert Kelton as her new partner in crime. In the film the girls spend their last fifty-dollars buying some pots and pans that they then have to try and sell. Door after door they're turned down until they run across a new bride who offers to buy them if the girls will cook a meal for her husband and his boss. PAN HANDLERS isn't a very good film but what shocked me is how much better the story is than many of the previous Todd-Kelly shorts. I'm not sure if the studio spent a few extra dollars getting the right screenplay down but the actual story is an interesting one but very little is done with it. Kelly pretty much is forced to be the entire show so this means she screams a lot and very loudly. It isn't quite as annoying as some of her other shorts but at the same time it's not funny. There's a politically incorrect sequence where she calls a Chinese man FuManchu and this is followed with an unfunny sequence where she agrees with a deaf man. Kelton pretty much stands around just offering support but the two women have zero chemistry and it's easy to say she was just a poor substitute. It's a real shame this story wasn't used earlier in the series because I'm sure it could have been a lot better with Kelly and Todd. The series would offer up two more shorts with Kelly and a new partner but both of them were beyond bad so needless to say but the series was certainly done with by this point.

Roach's 'Girl Friends' series winds down in the last year of Roach's short subjects production with no Zasu Pitts and with Thelma Todd dead -- Patsy Kelly and Pert Kelton get roped into selling aluminum pots and pans door to door. Unhappily there is very little chemistry between these two comediennes as Miss Kelly is 90% of the show and Miss Kelton is largely reduced to nodding in support. The gags are what sustains this movie; the Roach studio staff knew how to write gags and they could call upon a large number of actors and actresses to fill out the cast expertly.

This actually looks like it was originally intended to be a Laurel & Hardy short subject. It's a pity we can't see that version. They could have made a great movie out of it, but they were no longer doing short subjects.

Oh, well. This new girl may not have the charms (and the arms) of an impresario like bee stung-lipped cutie Toby Wing, but she's a good sport with a can-do attitude and she's here to prove she can hack it with pros like petunia-scented pin-up Kelly, who can sell ice cubes to the Eskimos and sand to the Arabs with her pearly whites.

Once thoroughly instructed by blue-haired Grace Goodall, they're off and running, peddlin' their pots and pans, and for the first ten minutes or so, it's tough to give a tinker's damn.

Then there's the scene with the turkey that's got a zipper on it! They toss it around like the ol' pigskin, and the pressure cooker goes wacko. Kelly makes me want to scream bloody murder, with that crazy thing on her head.

The first half is a bit of a drag, what with the girls getting their education and then there's shlepping the stuff around, meeting up with an old guy with a hearing problem. The second half COOKS, if you'll allow me to use the word here.

This short is best enjoyed for thanksgiving, and heck, even for the Super Bowl, especially if you're having a turkey for the occasion.

This has GOT to be one of the poorest executed short subjects Hal Roach ever made, yet it's so darn funny, I never rate it that low.

After some careful consideration, I guess this new blonde Pert isn't gonna work out after all. Sorry, girlie. Better luck next time. Next blonde in line, please!