Actress Thelma Todd achieved a sort of immortality in the early hours of December 16, 1935, when her lifeless body was found, under suspicious circumstances, in the garage of the Pacific Palisades home of director Roland West (Alibi, 1929). Sometimes, a scandal is the only reason to remember some personalities of the Golden Age. However, Todd had a remarkable string of credits and it is truly unfortunate that her achievements as an actress have been so overshadowed by the sooty cloud of a tabloid crime. It is all the more gratifying that TCM is opening the studio vault and presenting a collection of Todd's rarely-screened short subjects of the 1930s.

Comedy was Todd's forte and her best-remembered features are those in which she appeared with the legends of the form: the Marx Brothers (Monkey Business [1931] and Horse Feathers [1932]), Buster Keaton (Speak Easily [1932]), Wheeler and Woolsey (Hips, Hips, Hooray! [1934]), Jimmy Durante (Palooka [1934]), and Joe E. Brown (Broadminded [1931]). Her breezy, modern style made her equally suited to comedy drama, and enabled her to play second banana to such heavyweights as Clara Bow (Call Her Savage [1932]) and John Barrymore (Counsellor at Law [1933]).

Todd spent the prime of her career under contract to the Hal Roach Studios. For the most part, Todd was something of a comedy "bridesmaid," supporting one screen legend after another, but seldom wearing the veil of top billing. One Roach star with whom Todd regularly appeared was Jazz Age Everyman Charley Chase. One such film is The Real McCoy (1930), in which Chase stars as a policeman who poses as a hillbilly in order to woo a mountain schoolmarm (Todd). It was not a particularly challenging or rewarding role for Todd, but such was the unpredictable fate of the slapstick supporting femme. In a few weeks, it would be on to another film, other possibilities.

Producer: Hal Roach
Director: Warren Doane
Cinematography: George Stevens
Film Editing: Richard C. Currier
Cast: Charley Chase (Charley), Thelma Todd (Thelma), Edgar Kennedy (Cicero).
BW-21m.

by Bret Wood