On the Loose

I've long known about this Hal Roach-directed short because of its inclusion in a book about a famous comedy team but the actual stars of this one were Thelma Todd and Zazu Pitts, a female version of that other famous comedy team. In this one, the girls are tired of another date to Coney Island. The next day they get splashed mud by a car that happened to pass them by. A man sees them and offers to buy them new clothes. He then gets a date with one of them and offers his friend for the other. I'll stop there and just say this was quite a treat to watch especially when we see where they end up in and also the reveal of that famous comedy team when it's almost all over... P. S. What a treat to also see such familiar faces like Billy Gilbert and Charlie Hall here!

Zazu and Thelma impart great chemistry as best friends, a precursor of Laverne and Shirley one might say; unfortunately, as in the case of the latter pair, they are dependent on quality material from one script to the next, and this basic story line is pretty mundane: a millionaire playboy splashes mud on the girls and makes good by buying them new ensembles and taking them to Coney Island (to the playboy, slumming is chic, but we've established in an earlier scene that Thelma and Zazu are sick to death of cheapskate boyfriends taking them to Coney). Jokes just don't hit right even when they have potential, like the effeminate coutourier who talks like a cigar-chewing mug whenever the customers aren't around, or the cameo by Laurel and Hardy that drags a bit (in all fairness, these comedies were probably edited to anticipate audience response, with long silent pauses in order to avoid talking over the laughter). What works for a modern audience is the girls' friendship and their ability to laugh at their own dilemma -- a surprisingly believable reaction, although the microphone doesn't consistently pick up the humorous asides they're sharing. Also valuable is the slice-of-life account of a Coney Island visit, circa 1931. Chicagoans will no doubt also shed a nostalgic tear, recalling the now-defunct Riverview amusement park, which offered a lot of the same rides we see here, not to mention authentic sense of carnival atmosphere. Thelma is lovely, and obliges the camera with a little cheesecake as she gets ready for bed; the fact that she would die a few years hence adds a languid touch to the fun she seems to have onscreen. I'd like to research the "mystery" surrounding her alleged suicide, or at least see the 1991 TV movie about it starring Loni Anderson.

ON THE LOOSE

Aspect ratio: 1.37:1

Sound format: Mono

(Black and white - Short film)

Two young party girls (ZaSu Pitts and Thelma Todd) are romanced by a couple of clueless Brits (John Loder and Claud Allister) who take them out to their least favorite place on earth - Coney Island - where they suffer a series of adventures and indignities.

Part of an attempt by producer-director Hal Roach to recreate the successful Laurel and Hardy formula with other performers, this lumbering comedy is long on sight gags and short on laughs. Pitts and Todd - neither of them strangers to this kind of material - fail to strike many sparks as a potential 'comedy team', and the scenario is both obvious and heavy-handed. There's a surprising amount of risqué material, much of it revolving around gay stereotypes: Roach regular Billy Gilbert camps it up as an effeminate haute couturier, much embarrassed whenever he tries to describe the manner in which his dresses emphasize various parts of a woman's anatomy (however, a gruff aside to his staff reveals the campery to be a mere façade), and Allister plays his Brit character as a queenish fop, caught up in a running gag which finds him falling repeatedly into the arms of a young woman and her hot-tempered boyfriend, and he's more than happy to accommodate *both* of them! Laurel and Hardy make an unbilled appearance at the very end of the movie, and there's a brief cameo by frequent L&H co-star Charlie Hall.

This movie is very light to watch and has some nice humor in it. It also provides us with a good view of how fairs looked like in the '30's. It was especially fun and weird to see that the adults were having just as much fun as children on the fair.

There basically of course is very little story present but there are more than enough sequences and humor present to make us forget that. The characters in the movie are also really good and strong enough to carry the movie. Zasu Pitts and Thelma Todd formed a pretty good comical duo. Claud Allister was also good and quite fun to watch in the movie, as an over-the-top English chap.

There also are surprising quite a few sexual-references present, even some homosexual-references, which was all quite daring for its time.

At the very end of the movie we also see two very well known boys, none other than Laurel & Hardy, who want to ask the girls out.

Good fun, directed by Mr. Hal Roach himself.

7/10

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It looks like Hal Roach was attempting to popularise the pairing of the gorgeous Thelma Todd and Zasu Pitts here by including cameos by Laurel & Hardy and their occasional nemesis Charlie Hall. This film actually re-works a number of ideas from one of Laurel & Hardy's silent shorts - mostly in the Coney Island funfair locations - even using the same shaky hand-held shots.

The film is quite good of it's kind and Todd and Pitt work well together - especially in the scene in which they reminisce about all the losers who have taken them to Coney Island - their least favourite destination - on dates. Billy Gilbert also stands out as the camp dressmaker who finds it impossible to describe his creations without embarrassing himself and hides his true character behind his effeminate manner. And of course, a film only needs ninety seconds of Laurel & Hardy to be lifted immeasurably.