Satire! Thrills! Chases! When it comes to silent movie comedians and the thrill of dangerous stunts and chases that will make you wonder how they did it, nobody did it better or as hilariously as Harold Lloyd. "Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy" is an engaging attempt to wow us with his physicality and expert timing of gags left and right.
Harold Lloyd himself kept his films out of circulation and televised viewing for more than 30 years. In his Greenacres compound, he kept many of the original negatives of his one-reeler, two-reelers and feature-length pictures. Thanks to Lloyd he fashioned together a compilation of some of his best work in "World of Comedy." What we get is an hour and a half worth of footage and extended sequences from films such as "Why Worry?," "Hot Water," "Girl Shy" (one of Lloyd's sweetest love stories), "Feet First" and a couple of talkies like the hilarious "Movie Crazy." Why a more obscure talkie like "Professor Beware" is included without spoken dialogue during a freight train scene is beyond me other than to misrepresent it as a silent film. Why no more than a passing moment from "The Kid Brother" (one of his greatest films) is also questionable yet the choice clips and sequences are presented beautifully and are well-knit together. If I have one other gripe, I would've liked less obtrusive and superfluous narration by Arthur A. Ross.
For lovers of Harold Lloyd and newbies to this most gratifying physical comedian with the famous horn-rimmed glasses, "World of Comedy" serves its purpose - to entertain and to make us laugh. A word of warning: watch out for Lloyd just barely climbing a building in "Feet First" - you might pass out if you are acrophobic.
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