Show Business (1932)
* 1/2 (out of 4)
Extremely annoying and unfunny Hal Roach short has Thelma Todd and Zasu Pitts playing friends who get a call from their agent telling them to catch a train with their pet monkey because they've got a show to do. Of course, on board the train the monkey causes all sorts of trouble including bothering the main star (Anita Garvin) of the show. The more Todd-Pitts shorts I see I'm beginning to understand why the team didn't last too long. Again, perhaps I'll eventually get to some gems but this short is downright annoying and rather painful to watch. When it comes time to watch a comedy the last thing you want it to be is painful but that's exactly what we get here. The biggest problem is that the screenplay appears to have been written by the monkey because there's really no laughs to be found. Just take a look at one of the earliest scenes when Pitts is on the phone with the agent. We see her struggling with the cord. Not funny. When then see her go up the steps to her room only to forget something and go back to the phone. Not funny. We see her then walk back up the steps only to forget again and have to walk back down. Not funny. The stuff with the monkey causing trouble is something we've seen in countless other Roach shorts. I'd also say that Pitts and Todd have very little chemistry here and they really don't work too well off one another. Needless to say, that isn't good when we're talking about a comedy team. I think the only highlight is a sequence where Todd stands in a rather sexy lingerie, which at least gives us something to look at.
