Harold Lloyd

(On Cable TV, May 2021) Even a second-tier Harold Lloyd comedy is still a worthwhile watch, and while Movie Crazy never gets the attention that Lloyd’s silent classics do, it’s probably the best of his sound movies, and it offers a fascinating look at circa-1930 filmmaking to boot. The plot, or rather the excuse on which to hang the comic sequences, is all about a young man coming to Hollywood to seek fame and fortune. But while that plot would serve for countless 1930s comedies, only Lloyd could orchestrate some of the set-pieces here. Highlights here include disrupting a movie set and studio offices, destroying a convertible car’s retracting top, a screen test that plays around with early-sound technology and, in the film’s highlight, wreaking absolute havoc at a formal event with a magician’s suit. For film history buffs, a supplemental attraction is in offering a generous look (even if fictionalized) at how Hollywood sets worked by the early 1930s. But the jokes are the point, as always, with Lloyd’s affable personality building up a considerable reservoir of trust and likability. Movie Crazy may not be among his best, but it offers an interesting portrait of the artist trying to remain relevant in an industry that had moved away from the silent films, where he was used to full control of visual comedy.

(On Cable TV, August 2019) Considering that comedian Harold Lloyd’s career just about straddled the silent and sound era, Welcome Danger is a fascinating case study in how he was forced to transition from one style to the other. He did so reluctantly—after encountering so much success with silent movies, Lloyd could be forgiven so thinking that sound filmmaking would harm his usual fast-paced, visually centred approach to comedy. So it is that, according to the film’s production history, Welcome Danger was first shot as a silent, then (after Lloyd convinced himself that there was no other choice) edited down, partially re-shot and entirely re-dubbed so that it could be presented as a sound film. His qualms were not unjustified—most of Lloyd’s enduring classic films were made during the silent era, with the rest being considered an appendix to his silent body of work. Accordingly, Welcome Danger feels like a decent film, but nothing more—as Lloyd’s “Glasses” character travels to San Francisco to help fight against organized crime, the film mixes in the usual physical comedy, romantic subplot, and specific set-pieces. There’s something not entirely comfortable in the film constantly bringing up San Francisco’s Asian population as the origin of the crime wave—even if, ultimately, the film blurs the cards when it comes to the crime boss. Welcome Danger does remain watchable enough—it may not be a terrific Lloyd film, but it’s fun, “Glasses” is up to his usual likability and if there aren’t any big physical stunts to wow audiences, everything is wrapped up nicely.

(On Cable TV, October 2018) Not many films from the early silent 1920s are still frequently referenced today, but Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last! is a noteworthy exception, and watching it eventually reveals why. Lloyd’s bespectacled look has inspired numerous imitators (Cary Grant in Bringing up Baby and Harold Ramis in Ghostbusters being only two of them), but it’s the film’s concluding sequence, in which the protagonist climbs a Los Angeles high-rise with his bare hands, which still stands today as a virtuoso sequence of comedy and tension. There’s a new obstacle on every floor, and most of them are ridiculous. By the time we get to the clock, we’ve hit the iconic sequence of the film. It does take a while to get there—our protagonist is nothing more than an ordinary young man (despite the glasses, not necessarily an intellectual) wanting to impress a young woman, and much of the film’s first hour is spent leading to the skyscraper-climbing sequence, sometimes through rough narrative sequences and silly comedy moments. Still, those moments are amusing, even fascinating if you’re interested in 1920s Los Angeles. But the skyscraper sequence is an all-time classic, and it still works really well even today. [March 2019: Oh wow! The film being in the public domain as of January 2019, you can now play it straight from the film’s Wikipedia page in decent 720p resolution].