I saw this the other night at a revival theater and laughed so hard I nearly passed out. Harold Lloyd plays a small-town wannabe actor (and nincompoop) who wrecks havoc wherever he goes. One day he fumbles his way onto a Hollywood movie set. He also manages to land a screen test at the fictional "Planet Studios" (27 takes are needed to to get the scene right!) There is another hilarious bit with Harold as an extra - and everything goes wrong. Needless to say, Harold drives everyone at the studio crazy. One producer even thinks he's amusing, and thinks he has the potential to be a great comic actor.
During a rainstorm, Harold manages to lose his shoe down the gutter and tries to help a beautiful actress named Mary Sears (Constance Cummings) to pull the top over her convertible. Harold offers to help but he clumsily breaks the entire top off. Mary lets him dry off at her luxurious house and that's where the romance begins. In her "Spanish Lady" costume that she wears for a movie shoot, she tests his true love and loyalty.The funniest part of the film is the Hollywood party scene. In it, Harold mistakenly puts on a magician's coat and all sorts of gags fall out of its pockets, including rabbits, mice, and eggs. It's so funny. An underrated gem, this is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. If you like movies with alot of visual gags and cases of mistaken identity, you will love this one. I was really impressed with both Harold Lloyd and Constance Cummings. They have good chemistry. Cummings was a great comedic actress.
My rating: A
81 minutes. Not on DVD or Netflix to my knowledge.
The version I saw was a 35mm print restored by UCLA for the Harold Lloyd Foundation.
Love this movie and love Harold Lloyd! Thanks for putting both in the spotlight.
ReplyDeleteHarold Lloyd was a genius!
ReplyDelete@FlickChick - You're welcome! This was such a funny movie.
ReplyDelete@David C. - He sure was. It's been said that this movie is his best "talkie". I haven't seen all his talkies but it was certainly better than Mad Wednesday.
Movie Crazy is on DVD in the Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection. It's four double sided disks that collect just about every movie and short he did. Even though I own it, I've never gotten around to see that film. I started to watch one "talkie" of his and it just felt too strange.
ReplyDeleteInteresting...I haven't seen those other films. This one is hilarious. So funny.
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