Catch-As Catch-Can (1931) User Reviews (6)

Stolen by unbilled Billy Gilbert

[max von meyerling · 7/10 · 8 July 2006]

A not too bad Hal Roach short in the Zasu Pitts/ Thelma Todd series. Maybe later shorts were cheap, unimaginative, derivative and sloppy but this one, in its very minor way, is on the money. For me it was stolen by a Billy Gilbert bit (uncredited) where he is the ring announcer who renders the introductory speeches totally unintelligible but they sound absolutely right. There was more to the performer than generally seen which was usually the thin band built around his famous slow burn sthick and the blustering anger bit and of course his famous sneeze. That he was so audibly adept was probably from an earlier career in vaudeville. No wonder Chaplin used him as his "Göring" in The Great Dictator.

The picture has a set up with the girls as hotel switchboard operators, with the homesick hick wrestler threatening to leave "the big match" and go home upstairs. The pay off is the big wrestling match and Zasu needing to wear her hat. Nothing you haven't seen before but handled well without any missing angles or flubbed timing.

Director is Marshall 'Mickey' Neilen who started in the business as Cecil B. DeMille's chauffeur, handsome as a movie star, and went on the be one of the most important directors in Hollywood, particularly as Mary Pickford's house director. He was laid low by The Drink and there is a heart wrenching description of him by Garson Kanin in his memoirs of directing him in a bit in The Great Man Votes (1939). No one had an earlier start in Hollywood. He was on top for a lot of years but Catch as Catch Can represents a stop closer to the bottom than the top. He exists like a specter in the background in 1937's A Star is Born.

z pitts and t todd in an early talkie

[ksf-2 · 7/10 · 18 March 2017]

Zasu PItts and Thelma Todd are hotel telephone operators in this EARLY talkie, a 20 minute short from Hal Roach. Pretty rough copy... sound and picture quality are just terrible, but its such an oldie, we're lucky to still have it around at all. They make small talk in between customer calls, and crack jokes. Pretty funny stuff, but its dated material for sure. There's a story line about keeping "the strangler" (a wrestler) entertained.... we watch him tear up a hotel room for no reason, so clearly he DID need some watching. Too bad they didn't stick with the banter between the two switch-boarders... that was the best part of this. We get to see more of Pitt's comedy talent here, rather than just the silly, stumbling girl she played in most of her roles. She had been in the biz since 1917, so she was quite accomplished by this one in 1931. Pitts has an interesting bio on wikipedia... working with Bing, and of course, Fibber McGee, for those old enough to know what that was. Directed by Marshall Neilan, who had ALSO started in the silents. He was king of the shorts... directed from the early 1900s right into the 1930s. A couple of silly sight gags in and around the wrestling match, but that was simple fluff... for me, the best part was the back and forth between the telephone operators at the beginning. Sadly, actress Thelma Todd would die so young at 29, under such mysterious circumstances. Film buffs should definitely catch this one, even if only to see Pitts and Todd in an early talkie film.

Excuse me, Mr. Roach, but you forgot to make this film funny!

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 6 September 2010]

I have seen quite a few of the Thelma Todd/Zasu Pitts and Thelma Todd/Patsy Kelly shorts and must say that by and large they are pretty awful. While the Hal Roach Studio made some wonderfully funny films (such as Laurel & Hardy and Charley Chase), they also made some obviously lesser series during this same heyday of the late 20s and early 1930s--such as The Boy Friends and the Thelma Todd comedies. There are several problems with the material--most of which is that the writers just seemed to be asleep and included very little funny material. Plus, unlike their A-teams, Todd & Pitts were NOT the whole show but many bit players were included to get the laughs--as if they didn't trust the ladies to be funny.

This film finds Guinn Williams as a wrestler who is sick of the city and wants to go back home to the farm. However, he is also infatuated with Zasu and so Williams' agent tries to get her help to keep him from giving up his career. There are a few very, very small laughs here and there, but no more.

Pleasant and amusing

[Paularoc · 4/10 · 24 June 2012]

I've always enjoyed watching Zazu Pitts but do kinda feel sorry for her that she was typecast so early in her career. In this one, she is a little less dithery than usual and suitably amusing. Zazu and Thelma are friends who work as switchboard operators at the Empire Hotel. There's a bit early in the short where a drunk is trying to make a phone call; at one point a bumble bee (how likely is that?) lands on the phone's old fashioned mouth piece buzzing away and the drunk hangs up saying "busy." Simple humor but I like it. Thelma's boyfriend manages a wrestler nicknamed "Strangler." He's homesick for the family farm in Kansas and plans to leave prior to a big fight on which his manager has bet a bundle. "Strangler" falls for Zazu and agrees to fight. I thought the fight scenes and the business with Zazu's hat was pretty funny – this short was pleasant and amusing although not a "laugh-out-loud comedy.

Fair Pitts-Todd Short

[Michael_Elliott · 19 January 2011]

Catch as Catch Can (1931)

** (out of 4)

Flat comedy from Hal Roach has a wrestler growing homesick before a big fight so his manager fixes him up with Zasu Pitts who grew up on the farm as well. That night Zasu drags Thelma Todd to the fight where more than just one match breaks out. This Pitts-Todd comedy isn't as bad as some of them and it's not as good as some of them. Pretty straight comment but this short really doesn't do much to try and stand out and at times I kept wondering if the screenwriters had forgotten to throw any comedy in. The first half of the film takes place at the hotel where nothing funny happens unless the writers thought having the wrestler rip up his trunk would be funny. The girls play switchboard operators but nothing is every done with it. The second half of the film contains a few laughs once the girls get to the wrestling match including one funny scene where they're walking down a row of chairs trying to get to their seats when they come across a very large man who they can't pass. Another funny bit happens when Pitts gets a note that her new friends wants her to wear a hat if she loves him but the man behind her keeps taking it off because he can't see around it.

Zasu throws her hat in the ring, and catches a heavyweight!

[mark.waltz · 8 July 2019]

It's an okay entry in this Hal Roach comedy short where Zasu Pitts and Thelma Todd have their share of ordeals at a boxing match after Zasu meets country bumpkin Guinn "Big Boy" Williams with whom she shares a neighboring home state. But it's not easy pickins for her at the match, with the drunk guy behind her constantly trying to get rid of her lucky hat as she tries to cheer Williams on. Thelma is simply along for the ride and doesn't really get to do much but look beautiful, which of course she does very well. The boxing match itself isn't that exciting other than the fact it looks more choreographed as a valet than staged as a fight. Therefore, this is really going to be only of interest to students of classic early sound comedy and fans of the eternally nervous Ms. Pitts. I'd be interested to see what the rambunctious Patsy Kelly would do in a similar situation. I'm sure the drunk behind her would end up being flung into the boxing ring which would ultimately be a funnier conclusion then what happens here.