Series: ZaSu Pitts & Thelma Todd Director: Hal Roach Producer: Hal Roach Dialogue: H.M. Walker Photography: Walter Lundin Editor: Richard C. Currier Sound: Elmer Raguse Stars: ZaSu Pitts, Thelma Todd, Elizabeth Forrester Company: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Released: 03 October 1931 Length: 2 reels Production No.: A-2 Filming dates: August 6-14, 1931 Rating: -/10

The Pajama Party

Available on DVD:

ZaSu and Thelma are members of a broadcasting company. The musicians, headed by Eddie Dunn, are scheduled to play a gig in a house on Long Island the following night and so preparations are made to get the crew there in time. En route, the girls are accidentally run off the road and their car plows into a lake. The woman responsible offers them the hospitality of her large house so that they may dry off. The head butler (BILLY GILBERT) instructs the other two butlers (one of which is Frank Terry) to show ZaSu and Thelma to separate rooms to change their wet clothing. Everything ZaSu touches is quickly confiscated by the butler, who is eager to to allow the furniture to get wet. French maids are then assigned to assist the girls. ZaSu cannot understand a word her maid says, and Thelma ends up taking a bath fully clothed when she trips through the shower curtain. ZaSu's maid forcibly tries to undress her through ZaSu's resistence. The Baron and Baroness Kleinz Mittenhausen are announced by the statue-esque butler Billy Gilbert before all the gathered guests retire to the bar room. In a customary fashion, the guests take turns in kicking the host in the pants on account of it being his birthday. ZaSu makes the most of the opportunity to copy them by giving the unsuspecting butler a kick of her own. REVIEW INCOMPLETE...

Trivia • Copyrighted October 12, 1931. • This was the third film in the series to be released. • Also released with Spanish subtitles as "Gente al agua". • When Thelma is in the bath fully clothed, you can see through her top... if you know what I mean! • At around 13 minutes, the camera is on ZaSu at the bar but then quickly pans to the right to reveal Thelma's entrance. I think this shows Hal Roach's inexperience as a director to make such a poor movement of the camera.

	ZaSu Pitts ZaSu
	Thelma Todd Thelma
	Elizabeth Forrester Mrs. Van Dyke
	Carl M. Leviness Party guest
	Eddie Dunn Eddie
	Donald Novis Jimmy
	Lucien Prival The Baron Kleinz Mittenhausen
	Billy Gilbert Butler
	Charlie Hall Inebriated party guest
	Sydney Jarvis Party guest
	Frank Terry Butler Parkinson
	Germaine De Neel ZaSu's maid
	Dorothy Granger Smoking party guest
	Gordon Douglas Party guest
	Howard Truesdale Party guest
	Jack Richardson Pipe-smoking party guest
	Bertram Johns Party guest
	Hugh Saxon Butler
	UNIDENTIFIED Maid
	UNIDENTIFIED Party guest

CREDITS (click image to enlarge)

STILLS (click any image to enlarge)

Acknowledgements: http://thrillingdaysofyesteryear.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/why-christopher-hitchens-should-burn-in.html (still) Brent Seguine (identification of Carl M. Leviness) Jesse Brisson (identification of Hugh Saxon, Howard Truesdale, Gordon Douglas, Dorothy Granger) This page was last updated on: 04 October 2024