I don't write about Harold Lloyd very often, although I have implied previously that after Keaton, I prefer him to Chaplin. The above is one of his best silent features (all 58 minutes of it) but I should mention that he also made a couple of quite acceptable talkies of which "Mad Wednesday" is a particular favourite of mine. Here he plays a feckless millionnaire who inadvertently funds a Skid Row mission. Going there to complain about his name being used, he falls for the preacher's daughter and helps rope in all the local no-goodniks to come to services. Amusingly for a silent film, there is an awful lot of "singing" in this one. Lloyd's films are exceptionally clever in their shtick and performed with great athleticism, but perhaps they are just a little too cold and calculated to really enchant the viewer. Incidentally, the intertitles on his films are perhaps among the most literate yet pun-ful of all the silent comics.
The above film is not to be confused with a 1950 film of the same name starring the always droll Clifton Webb and something of an amusement in its own right. It has been on television once that I know of, but is unlikely to receive further showings in the short term. Is it just me, but does British TV seem to show fewer older films nowadays, to say nothing of silent films (which used to be aired)? I approach the schedules each week with great anticipation and I am so often disappointed.
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