Nearly two years ago, I bought a Harold Lloyd comedy collection which included all of his feature films through 1934, about half of which I'd seen previously, and a good assortment of his silent shorts (many of which I assume are now "lost"). It did not include his penultimate talkie made in 1938 nor his last one, the fabulous "The Sin of Harold Diddlebock" released in 1947 or the re-edit as "Mad Wednesday" from 1950. I have been dipping into this collection over the period and a very enjoyable experience it has been too. The above movie was the last to be seen and while nowhere as magical as his best silents, since Lloyd seemed bent on re-inventing himself as a character actor for the sound period, it too has some memorable moments.
Lloyd is raised from an early age in China by his missionary parents and only returns to the States some 20 years later to "find a woman to be the mother of my children". While well-versed in Chinese manners and aphorisms, he is quite unused to modern Western life and the comedy stems from his being a very polite fish out of water. He falls in with crooked politician George Barbier who urgently needs a dummy candidate to oppose the corrupt mayor, thereby maintaining the party's graft. Of course -- or there would be no story -- Lloyd actually becomes popular with the electorate and wins the election. When he tries to clean up the town, the horrified and financially-suffering bigwigs do their best to bring him down. However with the help of the local Chinese community and a famous Eastern illusionist, he manages to expose all the baddies and usher in a new period of reform. He also finds a woman to marry, the wise-cracking Una Merkle (her name always suggests some disease to me!) for the requisite happy ending. This was a pleasant enough finale for my Lloyd viewing, if not exactly a high point.
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