Miss Polly

Uggghhh! Considering this was a Hal Roach production (the same genius responsible for pairing Laurel with Hardy and creating Harold Lloyd and Charley Chase), this SHOULD have been a lot better and at least funny! Instead, it's a film full of very broad and tired-looking situations. Anchoring this film is Zasu Pitts. Her humor is often pretty grating and unfunny, though she is an excellent supporting actress. Placing her at the center of all this was not, in hindsight, a good idea. And the humor seemed catered to a very undemanding audience (such as kids and those who thought I DREAM OF JEANIE was a great show), so there was no subtlety or finesse to the script, direction or performances. For example, the behaviors of Pitts after she drank the "magic tonic" was just awful and uninspired.

All this is a real shame, as the film began very well and COULD have been good. In a fictional small town, a large group of nasty old prunes have seized control of the government and have determined to eliminate ANYTHING that smacks of fun!! Believe me, I have known people just like this and taking jabs at these "holier-than-thou" hypocrites is a great idea. Too bad the execution left so much to be desired.

A short comedy from '41 with ZASU PITTS starring as a woman with an eccentric handyman inventor (SLIM SUMMERVILLE). It should have been called "Love Potion 9" because it's all about the sip of special wine that puts the love gleam in someone's eye. Zasu's purpose is to cement the romance between ELYSE KNOX and DICK CLAYTON that is threatened to wilt if KATHLEEN HOWARD (Elyse's strict mother) has her say.

The scheme to concoct a love potion goes awry with a few amusing incidents piling up until Pitts and Summerville are able to convince the townspeople to loosen up and stop being under the influence of Kathleen Howard's puritanical ways. At a town meeting, they slip the mixture to Howard and she chases Summerville out of the courtroom with a love gleam in her eyes. The End.

Summing up: The kind of wacky comedy that only Zasu Pitts fans can truly appreciate. She's at her wide-eyed, fluttery best after a sip of the potion but it's very, very weak material, notable only for some of Summerville's wacky inventions.

I first encountered Zasu Pitts as "Trina" in Erich von Stroheim's GREED (1924), but this is not that. Here, she's Miss Pandora Polly, a lady with a big heart and a youthful spirit. Instead of GREED, what we have is a small town being terrorized by a stereotypical "upright and uptight guild." They've literally taken over the town, reducing the mayor to a pawn and passing all sorts of weird ordinances which proscribe amorous or even friendly contact between unmarried youths of the opposite sex. Zasu won't have any of this, and she takes steps to put the town right.

MISS POLLY is a story with one side to root for, the other against. The laughs are plenty, many coming from Slim Summerville as Slim Witkins, Polly's inventor friend. The only sane character in this movie, except for the soon-to-retire mailman, is Zasu's friend (or maid), Patsy (Brenda Forbes), who plays a delightful "straight-man" to Summerville's eccentricity.

It's only 45 minutes long, and it's a delight, especially if you enjoy observing the hypocrites getting their comeuppance.

Short film but packed with funny scenes and some terrific comic actors. Zasu Pitts stars are the town's old maid who runs afoul of her snotty neighbor (Kathleen Howard) by encouraging the old bat's daughter to run off and get married. Howard also dislikes Pitts' handyman (Slim Summerville) who is a hare-brained inventor. Howard is also head of the town's "purity league" and tries to control everything that happens in town. But then Pitts remembers some booze in the basement that, 20 years ago, got some folks all hopped up....

Excellent performances by Zasu Pitts and Kathleen Howard. Also very good is Brenda Forbes as the maid. Summerville is funny as the spazzy inventor. Elyse Knox and Richard Clayton are the lovers. Look for George Chandler, Vera Lewis, Sarah Edwards, Virginia Sale, Mickey Daniels, and Noel Neill (from TV's Superman).

The antics fly fast and furious in the first part, from a wacko machine that mows down hedges, smokes through houses, and even shoots out crawl ropes to hang from. Then it's on to wacky crowds, all humorously rushing, pushing, and mugging it up. All in all, it's a comical barrage of goofy wild antics.

But what's Miss. Polly to do. Nasty old Mrs. Snodgrass and her blue-nose Purity League forbid young love. So youthful Eddie and Barbara have to sneak around while sympathetic Polly helps them out. Now, if only goofy inventor Slim could control his machines, maybe young love might succeed after all.

For me, that first part was a load of chuckles. However, the last part where Polly imbibes a hidden love potion and gets suddenly aggressive does spread it on pretty thick, especially when Polly challenges Snodgrass and the League in her royal-like gown and exposes the amorous skeletons lurking in the members' well hidden closet.

Thus, I can see why moral consevatives might object since the burlesque is so unrelenting and totalizing. But I take it not so much as an attack on moral conservatism, but instead as a warning against possible extremist tendencies, especially in small towns like Polly's.

All in all, give the brief 44-minutes a try, especially the first part. You don't have to be an advocate of free love to get some chuckles.

(In Passing, I suspect there's an interesting backstory here, coming as the flick does on the verge of WWII. So see what you think.)