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
Thelma Todd
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
John J. Richardson
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)

This page was last updated on: 03 October 2023