Nobody's Baby

NOBODY'S BABY is the only feature film to star the short-lived comedy team of Patsy Kelly and Lyda Roberti. (They also starred in two shorts.) Roberti replaced the late Thelma Todd as Kelly's partner. Viewing the delightful chemistry between Patsy and Lyda, one regrets this team never had the chance to work again after this picture. (Roberti died soon after.) They provide amusing personalities that smoothly play off each other: Roberti as a well-meaning but bumbling ditz and Kelly as a hard-boiled wisecracker exasperated by the messes her partner inadvertently embroils them in. Lyda brings a childlike sweetness to her character, thus providing a lovable and forgivable vacuity in the best Stan Laurel tradition. Kelly's smart alecky brusqueness is humorously pungent but never abrasive, suggesting an essential amiability beneath her brassy exterior.

The farcical plot involving mistaken identity of a newborn baby is slight but amusing. The comedy material is generally unexceptional but Roberti and Kelly elevate it with their appealing personas. Kelly exhibits her tap dancing skills and Roberti her singing talent in a comedy number that unfortunately is too brief. Rosina Lawrence as the romantic ingenue also gets to sing and dance. She proves herself a gifted musical performer with an affecting winsomeness, but she comes across as too subdued for "star" potential. For additional musical entertainment, The Avalon Boys and the Rhythm Rascals each provide a pleasant if unremarkable number.

Patsy Kelly and Lyda Roberti were talented and vivacious comediennes who could always be relied on to enliven the films they appeared in. NOBODY'S BABY is no classic, but it's a rare and rewarding opportunity to see these two gifted actresses work together as a team.

The amazing patsy kelly, at age 27 ! She had done MOSTLY shorts before this... and this was just before her better known films There Goes my Heart and Merrily We Live. She's one of my favorites from old hollywood. Here, she's trying to find a job, but her new roomie steals her spot at the radio show audition, and generally gets in her way. So when their friend needs someone to look after the baby, they have a couple days of antics and silliness. Lots of slapstick humor, cases of mistaken identity. Not a lot was said, since we were deep in the film production code during this time. Gotta keep it all prim and proper! Confusion over who is the bride, who is the mother. So much silliness, but it kind of works if you are a fan of Miss Kelly! Features the Jimmie Grier orchestra and the Rhythm Rascals! All done in 68 minutes. Directed by Gus Meins; was king of the Our Gang and other short films from silents up to about 1936. Died young, suicide at 47, according to wikipedia dot com.

Hal Roach shut down short subject production and went into features. He tried each of his units: Our Gang got GENERAL SPANKY, Charley Chase got NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE, Laurel and Hardy were already in feature production, so what was left was Patsy Kelly and Lyda Roberti -- originally it had been Thelma Todd and Zasu Pitts but Thelma was dead and Zasu long gone.

Although the two shorts that the two leads had made in 1936 were poor, a lot of that can be laid at the feet of their tiny budgets. Here, with a decent budget and a good supporting cast, the result is fairly good as the ladies meet while trying to break into show business, head off to study nursing and so forth, all structured as a series of one-reel encounters. There is a very good scene early on as the two undergo disaster after disaster in a kitchen, with the characters and gags well delineated -- a problem for the series for a couple of years. Roberti's character clearly doesn't understand the subtleties of English and this infuriates Kelly. More than good enough.

Unfortunately, there would be no time for the team to develop. Roberti would be dead within a year, and Roach's operations would move off into other directions. Kelly's career would lead out of movies and back onto the stage.

After Thelma Todd's untimely and tragic demise in 1935, Patsy graduated from ding-a-ling to a take charge, tough-talking wisecracker. She became more responsible, the mistress of her own domain, the leader of her own destiny. And after a few misfired pairings with blonde replacement Pert Kelton, Bohemian girl Lyda Roberti took over for Kelton, and soon after, Kelly's two-reeler adventures came to an end. Hers weren't the only ones. Everyone at the Roach studio (with the lone exception of his Rascals) had to now make the transition to features only. Charley Chase was dismissed from the studio without so much as a by-your-leave after he proved he couldn't do it. Even the Rascals were given their own full-length feature, just in case: 1936's civil war playlet "General Spanky." This cuddly, yet uneven picture preceded "Gone With The Wind" by three years and may have even given David O. Selznick the divine inspiration to create his masterpiece, with great expense.

I find this picture almost as wonderful as Laurel and Hardy's 1937 feature "Way Out West." That film always worked better in color. I'm sure you'll agree, also! Who can forget their exciting romp through Brushwood Gulch? The Avalon Boys (who provided the music for their silly little dance) make a brief appearance at the very beginning here, sans cowboy hats and guitars. Though "Nobody's Baby" is in black and white, it comes off as one of the most charming and engaging of all of Roach's full-length efforts. In fact, I probably regard it as the finest non-Laurel and Hardy picture to have been released from that studio with the exception of the John Steinbeck classic "Of Mice and Men" starring Burgess Meredith as George and Lon Chaney Jr, as Lenny. This powerful drama is just as profound today as it was back then, and is considered a turning point for Roach, proving he could deliver a well-wrought drama just as well as he could deliver a well-wrought knockabout comedy.

It makes this humble reviewer sad to learn that Kelly turned from "The Queen of Wisecracks" to "The Queen of Misfortune" when several of her associates and co-stars died before their time. These unfortunate casualties included Todd, Jean Harlow, Lyda Roberti, her frequent director Gus Meins, and female-impersonator Jean Malin. Her reputation as a jinx in Hollywood steadily grew over time, and by 1943 she was blackballed. Her erratic behavior and wild exploits off-screen, coupled with several dalliances and flings she had with other women didn't help matters much. But I wouldn't blame her for these demises if I was you, fellow film buff. Many creative people in her sphere died younger than what is deemed acceptably normal back then.

Charley Chase died soon after his brother, L&H director James Parrott did in '39 and '40, both victims of alcoholism. Her frequent co-star alkie Arthur Houseman died in '42. Our Gang member Chubby Chaney died as early as 1936, and didn't even live long enough to see the release of this film. Forsooth, it seems most of the Little Rascals were cursed in one form or another, with the exception of Spanky who lived to a ripe old age.

Meins was the one who sat in the director's chair for this one, and I think it might have been the last time him and Patsy worked together after a fruitful association.

So.... Do I recommend it? Yes. "Way Out West" is the undisputed perennial classic and favorite, but "Nobody's Baby" is just a shade or so below that.

Nobody's Baby (1937)

** (out of 4)

After the death of Thelma Todd producer Hal Roach had think fast to try and find someone to team up with Patsy Kelly. They selected Lyda Roberti and the new team would appear in two (AT SEA ASHORE, HILL-TILLIES) shorts that were beyond awful. Roach would eventually quit producing shorts so here came the duos first and only feature as Roberti would be dead in less than a year. The story has Kelly and Roberti playing out of work artists who go to nursing school where they eventually meet a young dancer (Rosina Lawrence) who has runaway from her husband who doesn't know she's about to have a baby. Soon the girls are taking care of the baby while the mother tries to inform the father. NOBODY'S BABY is a film I'd call fair at best but when you compare it to the two shorts the ladies made you might as well call it a ground breaking masterpiece. There's no question that this isn't a very good movie but there are enough interesting moments to make it worth viewing if you're a fan of the cast and one does have to wonder what could have been done had the comedy group had time to grow. The story is a pretty weak one as it never really feels complete as it's pretty much delivered as six one-reel shorts. At first there's a skit involving the girl's trying out for radio. We then get a gag of them trying to cook. We then go to nursing school. We then flash to them getting kicked off a bus. They then meet the men in their lives. They meet the dancer. Then they get mixed up with the baby. Each of these "skits" play out just like a short and if you think too much about them then you'd probably have plenty of room to be negative. Again, considering how poor the two shorts were I was surprised to see that Kelly and Roberti were much better here. Kelly was especially better as she wasn't nearly as over bearing or annoying as she didn't go so over-the-top, which is something she often did in her two-reelers. She is pretty fun here as she delivers some great one-liners. Roberti wasn't much of an actress but she was cute either way. The supporting cast isn't all that impressive and that includes Armstrong who pretty much sleepwalks through his role. The jokes fly out pretty quickly from scene to scene and there's no question that they're hit and miss. Fans of Roach will probably want to check it out as will fans of Kelly and I certainly recommend it over the shorts they made the previous year.