Sound technology was new in 1929--brand new--and WELCOME DANGER, originally filmed in silent mode, was re-filmed with sound, the crude sound of the '20s which alternates between being loud one moment and soft the next, forcing a constant hand on the volume if you wish to keep track of the painfully banal dialog.
HAROLD LLOYD, improbably cast as the son of a police chief who ruled Chinatown, is sent to San Francisco to wipe out crime among the drug lords. Lloyd is a botany student who isn't quite what the force was expecting.
The opening scenes with BARBARA KENT are delightfully played for comic situations, but again it's the script that's the real problem. She seems a natural enough actress and Lloyd delivers his lines in OK style, but it's slow going to watch each scene develop--and most of the comic situations are pretty lame. EDGAR KENNEDY has fun with his role as a desk sergeant who sends Lloyd off on what he thinks is a wild goose chase in Chinatown looking for The Dragon.
Some of the sight gags are still fun, left-overs from the silent version, but the film has to be considered an uneasy transition between silent and sound that never quite clicks the way Lloyd's silent comedies did. As Osborne said when doing the intro, some of it is "pretty rough".
Summing up: Except for the interesting Chinatown sequence (which goes on much too long), and the slight twist as to the identity of The Dragon, this one is strictly for Harold Lloyd fans who want to see his complete works.
HAROLD LLOYD, improbably cast as the son of a police chief who ruled Chinatown, is sent to San Francisco to wipe out crime among the drug lords. Lloyd is a botany student who isn't quite what the force was expecting.
The opening scenes with BARBARA KENT are delightfully played for comic situations, but again it's the script that's the real problem. She seems a natural enough actress and Lloyd delivers his lines in OK style, but it's slow going to watch each scene develop--and most of the comic situations are pretty lame. EDGAR KENNEDY has fun with his role as a desk sergeant who sends Lloyd off on what he thinks is a wild goose chase in Chinatown looking for The Dragon.
Some of the sight gags are still fun, left-overs from the silent version, but the film has to be considered an uneasy transition between silent and sound that never quite clicks the way Lloyd's silent comedies did. As Osborne said when doing the intro, some of it is "pretty rough".
Summing up: Except for the interesting Chinatown sequence (which goes on much too long), and the slight twist as to the identity of The Dragon, this one is strictly for Harold Lloyd fans who want to see his complete works.