Red Noses

Red Noses (1932)

** (out of 4)

Hal Roach comedy has Zasu Pitts and Thelma Todd playing friends unable to go to work because both of them have a cold. Their boss desperately needs them so he sends the duo to a Turkish bath to get over their colds but of course they end up doing more damage. Roach did all sorts of comedy teams with the most famous being Laurel and Hardy but it's interesting that he would team Todd up with so many people. I'm not sure if he was just using her to make others funny or if he just couldn't settle on an appropriate team for her but I've never been all that thrilled with the Pitts-Todd shorts I've seen. This one here has a rather interesting set up but sadly there aren't too many laughs and in the end it becomes a real chore to try and sit through the 23-minutes. I think the biggest problem is that there's simply nothing funny here. We get silliness of the two girls getting too rough of a workout and then we have a very unfunny sequence where the girls are told to get undressed and Pitts is too shy to do so. I think the final gag of the film is a pretty good one when Pitts puts on the clothes of a man and naturally all the women begin to freak out. Pitts isn't too bad in the part and I'd say Todd is pretty good as well but the screenplay doesn't do them any favors.