Help Wanted, Female (1931)
* 1/2 (out of 4)
Pretty bad two-reeler about a woman (Daphne Pollard) and her son (Ginger Connelly) who spend all day in an unemployment office only to finally get a job as a cook at a doctor's office. She arrives there and meets the "doctors" (Edgar Kennedy, Arthur Housman) not knowing that they're actually burglars. Daphen, best known today for being the sister to Snub Pollard, appeared in over fifty films but I think it's safe to say that she wasn't the greatest actress in the world. It's really hard to tell what she could actually do by judging this film because there's no question that the thing needed a new story for anyone to shine. The majority of the running time features absolutely no laughs and instead we just get some silly slapstick that is never funny and instead comes off quite annoying. The majority of the second half features Pollard on the ground wrestling with Kennedy while Connelly is on the ground wrestling with Housman. This sequence lasts a good seven or so minutes and it seems to be only dragging along because they couldn't figure out anything else to do. It's not funny and it's not even cute in any sort of way. Kennedy was a staple in these shorts but sadly he's not given too much to do. Housman is best known for playing drunks and he too is wasted in the part. Connelly is just downright annoying as the child but this is largely due to the screenplay. At just 18-minutes the film seems to run longer than ROOTS and there's no reason to watch it.
