Glasses in Advertising doesn't scream funny

 THE SIN OF HAROLD DIDDLEBOCK (1947)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

When Harold Lloyd was asked to appear in a sequel to his fantastically rousing sports classic "The Freshman" by writer and director Preston Sturges, Lloyd must have been ecstatic. That ecstasy quickly dissipated when the two were reportedly at odds with the script and general direction of the film. Perhaps it was not a union made in heaven and watching "The Sin of Harold Diddlebock," you'd be right.

Lloyd is Harold Diddlebock (though in "The Freshman" his last name was Lamb) who helped his college football team win the big game. A big-time ad agency honcho, E.J. Waggleberry (Raymond Walburn), offers Harold a job in advertising after seeing him win the big game! Say what? That concept doesn't scream funny to me or make any sense with anyone who has ever seen "The Freshman." 20 years pass with no promotion and Harold is told to leave the company with a 2,000 dollar severance check and all he has to show for it is a paid off engagement ring and no women to share it with, well, except for a young ad artist, Frances Otis (Frances Ramsden, who never made another movie). This scene is quite sad and very moving but I just wonder, why an ad agency? And if he was in advertising, where is the can do spirit of Harold from the first movie? Why couldn't Harold have become a teacher at a college and involved with inadvertently becoming a football coach or something? Meanwhile, Harold has cash in his pocket and is almost taken for a ride by a con artist and we get one long, tedious extended scene in a bar that goes on and on - the punchline is that Harold drinks a stronger potent potable, named for him, and screams at a high pitch! Ha! 

The opening sequence (involving Harold winning the football game from "The Freshman") and the climactic sequence (Harold struggling on a building ledge with a lion) are the best and most noteworthy moments of this so-called comedy. The rest of "Sin of Harold Diddlebock" is frustratingly laugh-free and an endurance test even for Lloyd fans. As soon as you finish watching this interminable sequel, you'll want to go right back and see the glorious "The Freshman."  

Back to basics

 PROFESSOR BEWARE (1938)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The 1930's were a strange, underwhelming time for Harold Lloyd due to the fact that his films were not box-office hits. "Movie Crazy" and "Feet First" were hilarious but they never got the audience they deserved. "The Cat's-Paw" and "The Milky Way" were more remote in their comic premise though they still have quite a few laughs in each. "Professor Beware" was not well-received either yet, not unlike "Feet First," it was a welcome return to his silent comic roots. It is one long chase picture to be sure, like his early two-reelers, yet the chase is breezy and engaging even if the story never really takes shape. 

Lloyd is Professor Dean Lambert who has a certain obsession with Egyptian Neferus and the Pharaoh's daughter to the point that he sleeps in the sarcophagus! After getting into some trouble with a damsel in distress and an alcoholic (perfectly cast William Frawley) and the good old professor with no clothes on which causes him to be fired from the museum, we get a chase picture starting with a camper belonging to some recently married couple out to the desert, a couple of thieving partners including one purporting to be a judge, and cops on the professor's tail. To Harold Lloyd completists, some gags will seem familiar to those who have seen "Get Out and Get Under" with the car-inside-a-tent gag. There is also a chaotic finish with Lloyd consistently falling into the ocean water and fighting guys left and right to impress a woman and her father - always trying to make an impression. A repeat of Harold mimicking a chicken's clucking sound is not nearly as sidesplitting as his mimicking a horse's laugh in "The Milky Way."  

Despite this being a reprise of hapless Harold Lloyd at his best and recycling old gags, I still found this far more enjoyable than "Cat's-Paw" or "The Milky Way" (though nothing quite tops "Movie Crazy" for that decade alone). It's nothing new, nothing remotely inventive about it and not exactly a step forward for Mr. Lloyd (he does use rear-screen projection for some chases which is cheating a bit) but it is terrific fun seeing him going back to basics. 

Hang on for a roller coaster of laughs

 HAROLD LLOYD'S WORLD OF COMEDY (1962)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

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. 

Glasses and Milk need more ingredients

 THE MILKY WAY (1936)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Not unlike "The Cat's-Paw," Harold Lloyd's follow-up called "The Milky Way" has exceedingly funny moments strewn along an uninspired script. The idea of Lloyd as a milkman who's mistaken for knocking out a prizefighter and then becomes a major boxer himself, fooled by his manager into thinking he's good, is ripe for laughs and inspired lunacy. It's got laughs here and there, but no real lunacy.

In the 1920's, Harold Lloyd and director Hal Roach (not to mention Sam Taylor) would have milked this (pardon the pun) for every laugh they could get. In the 1930's, mainly due to the advent of sound, this movie doesn't ever kick it up in high gear compared to the silent pictures. Lloyd's typically milquetoasty type of guy (pardon the pun), Burleigh Sullivan, is a milkman who brings milk via horse and carriage to all his customers. For some reason, his boss (George Barbier, hysterically funny in "Cat's Paw") doesn't care much for Burleigh and though we assume we know the reasons, the insight never materializes. Burleigh comes to the rescue of his sister (Helen Mack) who is bullied by two men, Speedy McFarland, the prizefighter (a forgettable William Gargan) and an uneducated fighter named Spider (a very memorable Lionel Stander). Harold supposedly knocked out Speedy and the papers report it the next day making Burleigh into an unlikely new champion. The media-obsessed boxing manager (Adolphe Menjou), who is always conjuring new newspaper headlines, takes on Burleigh with the hope the kid will fail. 

It sounds like a great concept but the delivery isn't quite there. Harold Lloyd is simply not given enough to do. "The Milky Way" gets its head wrapped around the boxing minutiae when we really want to see the process by which Burleigh becomes a media sensation and, thus, we want to see Harold Lloyd giving it his best comic shot of adrenaline. We get one fight, a montage of newspaper headlines flaunting the kid's success, and within five minutes of screen time he is adored! The movie becomes sloppily written when Burleigh's sister hates all these guys for exploiting her brother and then, whoosh like the narrative wind, she's accepted a wedding proposal by Speedy! Say what? And let's not get started with Dorothy Wilson as Burleigh's girlfriend - after Bebe Daniels, Mildred Davis and Jobyna Ralston, Wilson is a sweet presence but rather weakly handled and doesn't even get a final, blissful scene with Lloyd.

Despite narrative inconsistencies, "The Milky Way" is a likable enough comedy with many moments that made me smile (especially Verree Teasdale as Menjou's girlfriend who has terrific one-liners) and a few that had me laughing uproariously (Harold mimicking a horse's laugh, the ducking contest between him and a philanthropist played by Marjorie Gateson). Still, despite being likable with one of the most likable of all physical comedians of that time, the movie never quite takes flight. It holds back too often and we are left with a reminder of how much funnier Harold Lloyd's early pre-talkie pictures were.  

Uninspired but still fun departure for Harold Lloyd

 THE CAT'S-PAW (1934)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The role of a naive missionary from China travelling to the U.S. is perfectly tailored for Everyman Harold Lloyd. During the 1930's Lloyd was performing less physical stunts and gags where he was running around engaging in all sorts of tomfoolery, and more character parts. "The Cat's-Paw" is a strange movie experience because it feels as if Lloyd should be jumping out of his skin and yet he's been directed by regular Lloyd director Sam Taylor to be remote and closed-off. This is only a fitfully funny comedy and, like most Lloyd pictures, it is fun but it is not great fun. 

When Ezekiel Cobb (Lloyd) arrives in the U.S. in the fictional California city of Stockport, he is looking for a wife (though one must wonder, where are all the women in China?) Almost immediately he runs into the "so dishonest that you must be honest" Good Government League boss, Mayo (George Barbier), who wrongly assumes that a milquetoast like Cobb will lose the mayoral election quicker than any quote from Chinese poet Ling Po. Naturally, Cobb takes the job seriously and becomes mayor and all hell breaks loose. He fires the police commissioner, vetoes bills left and right and is keenly aware of all the graft and corruption which he tries to eradicate. As I said earlier this is the perfect role for Harold Lloyd yet he is far too unassuming and all hell doesn't break loose enough, not until the dramatic finish where all the crooks and gangsters are gathered inside the cellar of an Asian antique shop. For those who admonish the racial attitudes of filmmakers and/or films of the times, be prepared for racist quips and the regular use of a certain racial epithet towards Asians.

There aren't too many lulls in "The Cat's-Paw" but there is no real comic fire in this picture - it should explode with comic fireworks and it mostly keeps itself restrained. So is Lloyd who is still charming and funny in his calm demeanor and his frequent spouting of Asian quotes (not by Confucius, but by Ling Po). The scene where he tries to use the telephone for the first time is hilarious yet this movie never quite becomes a fish-out-of-water picture - there is not enough of that culture shock considering Cobb has been living in China for 20 years. Even the presence of Una Merkel as a cigar-counter clerk is seemingly truncated - she knows the guy is naive and dumb yet she holds out for his Capraesque idealism to rid the city of corruption. Lloyd and Merkel unfortunately have too few scenes together. "The Cat's-Paw" is still a minor delight and worth seeing for Lloyd fans but it is largely an uninspired effort. 

The Little Tramp's selfless act of love

 THE CIRCUS (1928)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

There is a melancholic and hopeful spirit about the Little Tramp, the most famous character created during the silent film era by the great Charlie Chaplin. Here is a guy who is homeless and trying to get by and his needs are not great. He is a sentimentalist, not unlike the actual Chaplin, and believes in love and humanity which also makes both creator and character one of the great humanists of cinema. "The Circus" has such a deeply melancholic yet upbeat finish that I am almost ready to say it rivals his "Modern Times" or "City Lights" but I am not sure - it is certainly his finest and funniest achievement during the silent film era.

Right from the start of this rollicking comedy, the Little Tramp is already causing a ruckus. He inadvertently finds himself the butt of all jokes at a traveling show circus where he's chased by the police and a pony! The audience is doubled over with laughter especially in a priceless gag (an old one but it stands repeating if it is done well) where the cop and the Tramp are on a revolving platform yet neither can move very far. There's also the Tramp eating a hot dog belonging to a child, the hall of mirrors gag and the terrifically timed gag where Chaplin pretends to be an automaton (it is so good that I can see myself being fooled by this as well). This whole opening sequence occurs like a comic maze of epic funny gags because the Tramp is wrongfully accused of being a pickpocket, and all this is in the first 14 minutes!

The rest of "The Circus" has Chaplin as the new comic wonder of the circus, easily making the seasoned clowns look like amateurs. Of course, the Tramp is no seasoned comic or clown - it is all pure happenstance and the joke is that he cannot summon laughter by studying the clowns' routines like the William Tell bit involving an apple. The Tramp eats the apple and angers the circus owner (Allan Garcia) immensely since the little guy cannot do the routines and has no comic timing. Of course, love is around the corner when the Little Tramp falls for the owner's own stepdaughter, Merna (Merna Kennedy), an acrobat who sometimes fails to receive applause and has to be punished by not being fed by her mean stepfather. Merna likes the Tramp but then there's the handsome tightrope walker who steals her looks. 

"The Circus" is simply a wonderful, sprightly and delectably made romantic comedy with unbelievable stunts and scenes of impending terror that will have you grabbing your seat. The tightrope walking moment with Chaplin and a couple of intrusive monkeys on him will be enough to make you fall out of your chair laughing and terrified as well. A lion cage scene has to be seen to be believed, and all this is further proof that Chaplin has better comic timing than the Tramp himself. The last image of Chaplin doing his famous awkward walk to the sunset after giving up his love for Merna and for any further circus misadventures is about as sad and lonely a moment you will find in most silent cinema. I loved him for being that selfless and for Chaplin to have given us such a glowing comic creation and persona in so many films. Bravo!       

Names have been changed to protect the innocent

 HE WALKED BY NIGHT (1948)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Forget "The Naked City." "He Walked by Night" is an explosive, no frills thriller packed with enough action, solid performances and striking cinematography to render Jules Dassin's crime story as obsolete. Of course, history proved that "The Naked City" is better known and itself inspired a TV series. Well, this film not only stars Jack Webb in a small role as a forensics expert, it practically inspired the TV series "Dragnet," so there!

Richard Basehart is the lone gunman, Roy, who kills a policeman in the opening sequence while trying to rob a TV/radio store! For 1948, that is incredibly shocking violence! This killer gets away like a black cat in the night, robbing any kind of store and hiding out in the L.A. storm drains that covers many miles before returning to his bungalow with a barking dog. Roy shoots to kill but sometimes he uses the gun only as a threat in some robberies and his M.O. keeps changing. Roy works for a Mr. Reeves (Whit Bissell) as a technician and invents more elaborate electronics (of course, he had been pilfering all the electronic parts). This guy is also a step ahead of the police since he listens in on their frequency! How on earth are the cops going to catch up with him?

Truthfully, "He Walked by Night" is not a psychological profile of Roy nor is there any real depth to the cops (other than Scott Brady as Police Sgt. Marty Brennan who does a lot of the detective work in the latter half and Basehart's depiction of how antisocial Roy is). No, actually the film is a rip-roaring semi-documentary of a real-life case and it keeps you on edge through the workings of the multiple murders of cops and the forensic details. "He Walked by Night" is meant to be shallowly conceived and unglamorous, to evoke the tedious work cops must do to catch a criminal though not one frame of the film is tedious (the drawing of the suspect piece-by-piece by the witnesses is enthralling). The shootouts are crisp, brief and alarming especially the one in Mr. Reeves' office (courtesy of the sharp shadowy camera angles by DP John Alton) and of course the storm drain finale which is exceptionally done (allegedly it inspired Carol Reed's similar finale in "The Third Man" though I think that is yet to be proven). Exciting and first-rate all the way.