Feet First (1930)

Silent comedian Harold Lloyd made an easy transistion to the talkies, even if these films do not consistently reach the heights of brilliance to be found in his earlier ones.  This one is a good case in point.  He plays his usual nebbish but eager to better himself at the shoe store where he works as a stock boy, especially after he meets the girl of his dreams.  He takes a six-month "personality" course and has worked his way up to salesman when he meets her again and believes her to be the daughter of a shoe magnate.  When they sail to the States (the movie opens in Honolulu) he finds himself as a stowaway on their liner and tries to maintain his pose as a "leather mogul" while avoiding capture by the ship's crew.  All of this is episodic with some great bits of business tucked into the so far predictable story line.  The real kicker is when he brags that he will get an important letter that the magnate has dictated to San Francisco before the ship docks and after hiding in a mailbag he is air-mailed ahead of the ship.  There then follows a hanging-on -the-facade-of-a-tall-office-building sequence, reminiscent of his famous "Safety First", which probably goes on a tad too long, but which includes some breathtaking stunts and duels with disaster.  For all its longeurs, still better entertainment than so many of our modern so-called comedies.