ZaSu Pitts Filmography

The Thrill of It All!

Actors: Doris Day, James Garner, Arlene Francis, Edward Andrews, ZaSu Pitts, Reginald Owen

Synopsis: This amusing romantic comedy concerns Dr. Gerald Boyer (James Garner), a successful gynecologist with a wife and two children. Wife Beverly (Doris Day) focuses on maintaining the household and watching the kids. One of Gerald's patients, Mrs. Fraleigh (Arlene Francis), overhears Beverly talking up Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Absent Artist

Synopsis: Pete Manders (Wynn Pearce), chief assistant to cartoonist Gabe Philips (Mark Roberts), cannot believe his good fortune when Philips sells him the rights to his popular comic strip "Zingy" at a bargain rate. Philips claims that he wants to retire from the daily grind and set up residence in the Read More

Teenage Millionaire

Actors: Jimmy Clanton, Rocky Graziano, ZaSu Pitts, Diane Jergens

Synopsis: A few unusual performers and actors are among the cast in this otherwise routine teen musical with more rock 'n roll than story. The legendary Zazu Pitts plays the role of Aunt Theodora, the woman who tries to keep her nephew Bobby (Jimmy Clanton) from getting on with his singing career. Bobby's Read More

The Gazebo

Actors: Glenn Ford, Debbie Reynolds, Carl Reiner, John McGiver, Mabel Albertson

Synopsis: Any murder mystery featuring a pigeon named Herman can be trusted to offer more mirth than mayhem and that is the case with this upbeat film by director George Marshall. Glenn Ford stars as Elliott Nash, a television playwright married to Nell (Debbie Reynolds), a successful Broadway thespian. Read More

Hour of Stars: The Genius

TV Hour of Stars

This Could Be the Night

Actors: Jean Simmons, Paul Douglas, Anthony Franciosa, Julie Wilson, Neile Adams, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: A rare comedy effort by director Robert Wise, This Could Be the Night is based on a series of short stories Cordelia Baird Gross. Jean Simmons stars as Anne Leeds, a prim, proper and very level-headed grade-school teacher who takes a night job as secretary to rough-and-tumble nightclub owner Rocco Read More

Screen Directors' Playhouse: The Silent Partner

Synopsis: "The Silent Partner" is, along with John Ford's "Rookie of the Year", perhaps the best-known episode of the TV anthology series Screen Directors' Playhouse. Buster Keaton stars as Kelsey Dutton, a former silent-film comedian fallen upon hard times. While visiting a neighborhood tavern, Kelsey is Read More

Francis Joins the Wacs

Actors: Donald O'Connor, Julie Adams, Chill Wills, Mamie van Doren, Lynn Bari

Synopsis: Francis Joins the WACS was the fifth in Universal's comedy series about a talking Army mule and his hapless human companion. Thanks to a bureaucratic snafu, ex-GI Peter Sterling (Donald O'Connor) is called into acitive duty and assigned to a WAC unit, headed by Major Simpson (Lynn Bari). It is Read More

Spike Jones: The Best of Spike Jones, Vol. 3

Synopsis: Crash! Bang! Squeal! Spike Jones and his City Slickers, still the craziest band of their time or ours, turn music upside down and inside out in this selection of comic highlights from Jones's popular television series of the 1950's. With his guests (among them Zasu Pitts, Howdy Doody and Billy Read More

The Denver and Rio Grande

Actors: Edmond O'Brien, Sterling Hayden, Dean Jagger, Laura Elliot, Lyle Bettger

Synopsis: Audiences got their money's worth and then some from Byron Haskin's The Denver and Rio Grande. Edmond O'Brien plays Jim Vesser, a former U.S. Cavalry officer and hero, now the man in charge of getting the D&RG's tracks across the Rockies first to secure a right-of-way -- he revels in the job Read More

Lum and Abner

Francis

Actors: Donald O'Connor, Patricia Medina, ZaSu Pitts, Ray Collins, John McIntire

Synopsis: One wonders if Donald O'Connor would have consented to star in Francis if he knew that a series was to follow. Adapted by David Stern from his own novel, the film stars O'Connor as GI Peter Sterling, who appears to be bucking for a Section Eight. Seems that Sterling keeps insisting that Francis, a Read More

Life With Father

Actors: William Powell, Irene Dunne, Monte Blue, ZaSu Pitts, Clara Blandick, Johnny Calkins, Emma Dunn, Edmund Gwenn, Elizabeth Taylor

Synopsis: The longest-running non-musical play in Broadway history, Life With Father was faithfully filmed by Warner Bros. in 1947. William Powell is a tower of comic strength as Clarence Day, the benevolent despot of his 1880s New York City household. Irene Dunne co-stars as Day's wife Vinnie, who Read More

The Perfect Marriage

Actors: Loretta Young, David Niven, Eddie Albert, Charlie Ruggles, Virginia Field

Synopsis: If the Perfect Marriage in this romantic comedy were truly perfect, there wouldn't be any story, would there? Outwardly an ideal couple, Maggie and Dale Williams (Loretta Young, David Niven) have grown tired of one another after 10 years. Petty squabbles lead to major battles, exacerbated by the Read More

Breakfast in Hollywood

Actors: Tom Breneman, Bonita Granville, Beulah Bondi, Edward Ryan

Synopsis: Breakfast in Hollywood was loosely based on the ABC radio program of the same name. Tom Breneman, the series' host, appears as himself in a contrived story about a radio personality attempting to smooth the path of true love for heroine Dorothy (Bonita Granville) and hero Ken (Edward Ryan); he Read More

Let's Face It

Actors: Bob Hope, Betty Hutton, ZaSu Pitts, Phyllis Povah, Eve Arden, Dave Willock

Synopsis: Let's Face It is adapted from the Broadway musical of the same name, which in turn was based on the old Norma Mitchell/Russell G. Medcraft stage chestnut The Cradle Snatchers. The basic story of three neglected wives who hire a trio of young men as professional companions is updated for the World Read More

The Bashful Bachelor

Actors: Chester Lauck, Norris Goff, Grady Sutton, Oscar O'Shea

Synopsis: The Bashful Bachelor was the second of six 1940s B films inspired by the popular radio series Lum 'N' Abner. The two principal characters are the proprietors of the Jot 'Em Down Store in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Lum (Chester Lauck) endeavors to impress a marriageable middle-aged lady (ZaSu Pitts) by Read More

Tish

Actors: Marjorie Main, ZaSu Pitts, Aline MacMahon, Susan Peters, Lee Bowman

Synopsis: In this comedy, the town gossip fills her time running the lives of others. Naturally, she is also a matchmaker. When she tries to find a suitable mate for her nephew, trouble ensues because he only has eyes for the daughter of the busybody's nemesis, the town judge. Meanwhile the girl the town Read More

Mexican Spitfire at Sea

Actors: Lupe Velez, Leon Errol, ZaSu Pitts, Elizabeth Risdon

Synopsis: The first "Mexican Spitfire" entry of 1942, Mexican Spitfire at Sea is set mainly on a Hawaii-bound ocean liner. Combining business with pleasure, vacationing advertsing man Dennis (Charles "Buddy" Rogers) hopes to sign a contract with a wealthy client. Alas, these plans are scotched by the Read More

Meet the Mob

Actors: ZaSu Pitts, Roger Pryor, Warren Hymer, Gwen Kenyon, Douglas Fowley

Synopsis: Monogram's So's Your Aunt Emma owes whatever success it enjoys to its star, the incomparable ZaSu Pitts. The fluttery ZaSu plays a countrified maiden aunt who comes to the big city when her nephew Roger Pryor gets into trouble with the Law. Seems that Pryor is inextricably involved with gangsters Read More

Uncle Joe

Synopsis: Gale Storm and Zasu Pitts star in this comedic tale of a troublesome young city girl who is sent to spend summer in the country, only to find that the great outdoors hold equally as much potential for mischief as the concrete jungle. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide Read More

Mexican Spitfire's Baby

Actors: Lupe Velez, Leon Errol, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, ZaSu Pitts, Elizabeth Risdon

Synopsis: Even non-fans of RKO Radio's "Mexican Spitfire" series will garner a few healthy laughs from Mexican Spitfire's Baby. This time around, tempetuous Carmelita (Lupe Velez) and her staid American husband Dennis (Charles "Buddy" Rogers) adopt a French war orphan. Imagine Dennis' surprise and Read More

Niagara Falls

Actors: Marjorie Woodworth, Tom Brown, ZaSu Pitts, George "Slim" Summerville, Chester Clute

Synopsis: The second of Hal Roach's "streamliners" (feature films running 45 minutes or so), Niagara Falls serves as a showcase for Roach protegee Marjorie Woodworth. The action takes place at a honeymoon hotel in-where else?--Niagara Falls. Gangly Sam Sawyer (Slim Summerville), newly married to matronly Read More

Miss Polly

Actors: ZaSu Pitts, Kathleen Howard, George "Slim" Summerville, Brenda Forbes, Elyse Knox

Synopsis: Welcome to Midville, an appropriately named small town that has carried moderation to extremes. Run for over a generation by a bluenose civic league, the town doesn't allow driving faster than 12 mph -- and drivers can get a summons for not having a running-board, a part of a car that went out of Read More

Broadway Limited

Actors: Victor McLaglen, Marjorie Woodworth, Dennis O'Keefe, Patsy Kelly, ZaSu Pitts

Synopsis: Two of Hal Roach's short-subject stalwarts, Patsy Kelly and ZaSu Pitts, are teamed in the Roach-produced feature Broadway Limited. The whole story unfolds on a Chicago-to-Manhattan express train; among the passengers are Hollywood starlet April (Marjorie Woodworth), her producer Ivan (Leonid Kinskey Read More

Weekend for Three

Actors: Dennis O'Keefe, Jane Wyatt, Phillip Reed, Edward Everett Horton, ZaSu Pitts

Synopsis: Boasting a script cowritten by Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell from a story by Budd Schulberg, Weekend for Three should have been a comedy classic-but alas, it isn't. Over the protests of her husband Jim (Dennis O'Keefe), Ellen Craig (Jane Wyatt) invites her old friend Randy (Dennis O'Keefe) to Read More

It All Came True

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, Jeffrey Lynn, ZaSu Pitts, Una O'Connor

Synopsis: Humphrey Bogart is a gangster again, this time as counterpoint to the comic elements of It All Came True. On the lam from the cops, Bogart hides out in a theatrical boarding house, where most of the residents are old-timers dreaming of a comeback. Amused by these offbeat characters, Bogart Read More

No, No Nanette

Actors: Anna Neagle, Richard Carlson, Victor Mature, Roland Young, Helen Broderick

Synopsis: No, No, Nanette was the second film version of the popular Otto Harbach-Vincent Youmans Broadway musical. Though slightly updated, the basic plot remains the same, with heroine Nanette (Anna Neagle) entering into a financial arrangement whereby she must answer "No" to every question during a Read More

The Lady's from Kentucky

Actors: George Raft, Ellen Drew, Hugh Herbert, ZaSu Pitts, Louise Beavers

Synopsis: The "Lady" of the title is horse-farm owner Penelope Hollis (Ellen Drew), but during the first half of this film, bookie Marty Black (George Raft) only has eyes for Penelope's prize two-year-old. After losing his gambling joint, Marty finds himself with half ownership of the horse as his sole Read More

Naughty But Nice

Actors: Ann Sheridan, Dick Powell, Gale Page, Helen Broderick

Synopsis: It's Swing Music vs. the Classics in the easy-to-take Warners tunefest Naughty But Nice. Dick Powell dons the obligatory spectacles as a staid music professor Hardwick, who harbors a desire to become a songwriter. With the help of aspiring lyricist Linda McKay (Gale Page), Hardwick pens a little Read More

Nurse Edith Cavell

Actors: Anna Neagle, Edna May Oliver, George Sanders, May Robson, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: Many of the "preparedness" films of the years just prior to World War II sidestepped censorship by depicting past outrages of the Germans. Such a film was British producer Herbert Wilcox's Hollywood production Nurse Edith Cavell, in which Wilcox's future wife Anna Neagle portrayed the titular Read More

Eternally Yours

Actors: Loretta Young, David Niven, Billie Burke, Hugh Herbert, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: Anita's (Loretta Young) life seems to be progressing nicely. She's engaged to Don Barnes (Broderick Crawford), a wealthy man that will give her all the stability and comfort a woman could desire. But then she meets a magician with the unlikely name of The Great Arturo (David Niven), who performs a Read More

Mickey, the Kid

Actors: Bruce Cabot, Ralph Byrd, ZaSu Pitts, Tommy Ryan, Jessie Ralph

Synopsis: In this heartwarming drama, a crook endeavors to raise his son in the slums until he kills a teller during a bank robbery. At first he sends the lad to his grandma, but when government agents threaten to catch him, he grabs the kid and hightails it. They high-jack a school bus filled with children Read More

52nd Street

Actors: Ian Hunter, Leo Carrillo, Pat Paterson, Ella Logan, ZaSu Pitts

Synopsis: This musical chronicles 15 years in the life of a New York City Street. In 1912, 52nd Street is a peaceful residential neighborhood and by 1937 it has become a bawdy red-light district. As the street changes, so do the lives of a brother and his two sisters who become estranged when he marries an Read More

Forty Naughty Girls

Actors: James Gleason, ZaSu Pitts, Marjorie Lord, George Shelley, Joan Woodbury

Synopsis: RKO Radio's "Hildegarde Withers" series, based on the mystery stories by Stuart Palmer, ground to a half with 40 Naughty Girls. ZaSu Pitts is once more miscast as crime-solving schoolmarm Hildegarde Withers, while James Gleason is rather better served as Inspector Oscar Piper. The title refers to Read More

Merry Comes to Stay

Actors: ZaSu Pitts, Guy Newall, Betty Ann Davies, Stella Arbenina

Synopsis: In this drama a Detroit secretary working at a small school finds herself inheriting $500 upon her principal's death. She decides to use the money for a London vacation. Unfortunately, the new principal fires her for insisting on time off. She goes to England anyway where she finds her Read More

Wanted

Actors: ZaSu Pitts, Claude Dampier, Mark Daly, Norma Varden, Finlay Currie

Synopsis: In this comedy, a mild-mannered shipping clerk and his wife get into deep trouble after they are mistaken for jewel thieves by gangsters who want them to steal some valuable jewels. Despite the couple's protest, the crooks force them into pulling off the job during a ritzy party. While there, they Read More

Way Out West

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Sharon Lynne, James Finlayson, Rosina Lawrence, Stanley Fields

Synopsis: Prospectors Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy head to the western town of Brushwood Gulch, two men on a top-secret mission. The boys have been entrusted by their recently deceased partner Cy Roberts with a deed to a valuable gold mine, to be delivered in person to Roberts' daughter Mary (Rosina Lawrence Read More

Thirteen Hours by Air

Actors: Fred MacMurray, Joan Bennett, ZaSu Pitts, John Howard, Bennie Bartlett

Synopsis: Making a transcontinental plane flight in only thirteen hours was quite an achievement when this film was made in 1936 -- but it was not impossible, as indicated by Paramount's last-minute decision to "downsize" the film's original title, Twenty Hours by Air. In anticipation of Airport 34 years Read More

Sing Me a Love Song

Actors: James Melton, ZaSu Pitts, Patricia Ellis, Ann Sheridan, Hugh Herbert, Allen Jenkins

Synopsis: For a change of pace, Warner Bros. contract tenor James Melton sings no opera in Sing Me A Love Song -- nor does he sing anything particularly memorable, either. Melton stars as Jerry Haines, a young man-about-town who takes an entry-level job in his dad's department store. Jerry wants no special Read More

Mad Holiday

Actors: Edmund Lowe, Elissa Landi, ZaSu Pitts, Ted Healy, Edmund Gwenn

Synopsis: The overlong but absorbing MGM "B" melodrama Mad Holiday stars Edmund Lowe as vacationing movie idol Philip Trent. Tired of starring in murder mysteries, Trent discovers he can't escape typecasting even on an ocean voyage: one of the passengers is murdered in our hero's cabin. The killing is tied Read More

Ruggles of Red Gap

Actors: Charles Laughton, Mary Boland, Charlie Ruggles, ZaSu Pitts, Roland Young, Leila Hyams

Synopsis: Previously filmed in 1918 and 1923, Harry Leon Wilson's novel achieved movie classic status when it was remade by Leo McCarey in 1935. The story opens in Paris, circa 1908. Ruggles, beautifully underplayed by Charles Laughton, is the ultra-obedient manservant to the bibulous Earl of Burnstead (Roland Young Read More

Hot Tip

Actors: ZaSu Pitts, James Gleason, Margaret Callahan, Russell Gleason, Ray Mayer

Synopsis: The multitalented James Gleason was both star and co-director of the RKO Radio programmer Hot Tip. Gleason is cast as restaurant owner Jimmy McGill, an inveterate horse player who's a sucker for every race-track tout within a hundred-mile radius. But his wife Jane (ZaSu Pitts) detests gambling, so Read More

She Gets Her Man

Actors: ZaSu Pitts, Hugh O'Connell, Helen Twelvetrees, Lucien Littlefield, Ward Bond

Synopsis: In this comedy, a waitress at a local lunch counter inadvertently foils a bank robbery and finds herself turned into a national heroine by an eager-beaver reporter. Unfortunately, her sudden notoriety causes gangsters to abduct her. The plucky waitress not only manages to talk them into returning Read More

The Plot Thickens

Actors: James Gleason, ZaSu Pitts, Owen Davis, Jr., Louise Latimer, Arthur Ayleswofth

Synopsis: Dithery ZaSu Pitts is miscast as novelist Stuart Palmer's crime-solving schoolmarm Hildegarde Withers in The Plot Thickens. As usual, Hildegarde tries to figure out the connection between two ostensibly unrelated murders. The unifying factor turns out to be a priceless museum artifact, targeted Read More

Going Highbrow

Actors: Guy Kibbee, ZaSu Pitts, Edward Everett Horton, Ross Alexander, June Martel

Synopsis: Consigned to the Warner Bros. "B" unit in the mid-1930s, director Robert Florey must have had a high old time trying to inject some visual dynamics into such unprepossessing projects as Going Highbrow. Guy Kibbee and ZaSu Pitts star as Mr. and Mrs. Matt Upshaw, a nouveau riche couple clearly Read More

The Affair of Susan

Actors: ZaSu Pitts, Hugh O'Connell, Walter Catlett, Tom Dugan, Inez Courtney

Synopsis: Susan (ZaSu Pitts) is a plain-Jane wallflower who spends a day at Coney Island. Here she catches the eye of equally shy (and twice as homely) Hugh O'Connell. Though both hero and heroine spend every penny and then some riding the rides and trying their luck at the arcade; it hardly matters since Read More

Spring Tonic

Actors: Lew Ayres, Claire Trevor, ZaSu Pitts, Jack Haley

Synopsis: It is said that former gagman Clyde Bruckman spent most of his directing days sitting in his canvas chair quietly nursing a hangover. Well, someone must have directed Spring Tonic, and if it was Bruckman (as credited), he certainly sobered up long enough to deliver the goods. Claire Trevor walks Read More

Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch

Actors: Pauline Lord, W.C. Fields, ZaSu Pitts, Evelyn Venable, Kent Taylor

Synopsis: Frequently and misleadingly advertised as a W.C. Fields vehicle, Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch confines the Great Man's appearance to the final two reels. The rest of the picture is a ploddingly paced adaptation of the hoary old Anne Hagan Rice novel about how wonderful it is to be poor. In a Read More

Love Birds

Actors: George "Slim" Summerville, ZaSu Pitts, Mickey Rooney, Frederick Burton, Emmett Vogan

Synopsis: Birdlike ZaSu Pitts and gangly Slim Summerville are together again in the Universal programmer Love Birds. The stars are cast respectively as schoolmarm Araminta Tootle and chicken farmer Henry Whipple, both of whom are sold the same abandoned ranch by the same fast-talking con artist. Neither Read More

Dames

Actors: Joan Blondell, Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, ZaSu Pitts, Guy Kibbee

Synopsis: As the title song says, you go to those shows to see those beautiful dames--and there's dames aplenty in this 1934 Busby Berkeley extravaganza. The wisp of a plot is motivated by one Ezra Ounce (Hugh Herbert), a silly millionaire who spearheads a national anti-fun movement. Ounce's distant cousin Dick Powell Read More

The Meanest Gal in Town

Actors: ZaSu Pitts, James Gleason, El Brendel, Pert Kelton

Synopsis: Dry-goods store owner Tillie Prescott (ZaSu Pitts) is considered "the meanest gal in town" because she won't marry barber Chris Peterson (El Brendel) until he can afford to support them both. Enter stranded showgirl Lulu White (Pert Kelton), who sets her cap for Peterson. Her judgment clouded by Read More

The Gay Bride

Actors: Carole Lombard, Chester Morris, ZaSu Pitts, Leo Carrillo, Nat Pendleton

Synopsis: Carole Lombard's only MGM film, The Gay Bride has been cited by some as a precursor to 1988's Married to the Mob -- only without the laughs. Adapted by the usually reliable Samuel and Bella Spewack from Charles Francis Coe's magazine story Repeal, the film charts the misadventures of gold-digging Read More

Three on a Honeymoon

Actors: Sally Eilers, ZaSu Pitts, Henrietta Crosman, Charles Starrett, Irene Hervey

Synopsis: Never mind the "limited" title: There are plenty of honeymooners on the ocean liner which serves as the setting for this romantic comedy. One of the few unattached passengers is heiress Joan Foster (Sally Eilers), who is watched over like a hawk by her stepmother "Ma" Gillespie (Henrietta Read More

Their Big Moment

Actors: ZaSu Pitts, George "Slim" Summerville, Julie Haydon, Ralph Morgan, William Gaxton

Synopsis: In this comedy, two sisters work as assistants to a magician. The trouble begins when the day before a big show, the magician's psychic quits. In desperation he enlists the aide of one of the assistants. The three end up hired by a woman who is trying to help her wealthy, widowed sister see that Read More

Sing and Like It

Actors: ZaSu Pitts, Pert Kelton, Edward Everett Horton, Nat Pendleton, Ned Sparks

Synopsis: Annie Snodgrass (ZaSu Pitts) has a voice that could shatter glass, but try telling that to moonstruck gangster boss Fenny (Nat Pendleton). So entranced is Fenny by Annie's rendition of a sentimental "Mother" song that he tries to force the public to accept her as a big star. He even pulls a gun on Read More

Private Scandal

Actors: ZaSu Pitts, Phillips Holmes, Mary Brian, Ned Sparks, Lew Cody

Synopsis: Usually consigned to the supporting cast, eccentric comic actress ZaSu Pitts was occasionally rewarded with a leading role. In Paramount's Private Scandal, Pitts is top-billed as Miss Coates, the fey secretary of hotshot young executive Cliff Barry (Philips Holmes). Accused of murdering his boss Read More

Two Alone

Actors: Jean Parker, Tom Brown, ZaSu Pitts, Beulah Bondi

Synopsis: In this drama, an impoverished orphan girl finds herself acting as a slave to a cruel old farmer. She is soon joined by a reform-school runaway whom the farmer also captures and enslaves. The two youngsters soon fall in love. In the end they are saved by the orphan's long lost father who Read More