I've been working my way through the wonderful DVD box set of Harold Lloyd, and I have to say that his silents are superb and I love them to bits. Until the advent of DVD, the only sound Lloyd I'd seen was 'The Milky Way', which was surprisingly enjoyable. So I figured that Lloyd had made the silent-to-sound transition reasonably well, and was eager to see more of the sound features.
Alas, 'Movie Crazy' is a particular disappointment, probably because it's been hyped as Lloyd's best sound film. Lloyd seems to fall into the same trap that Buster Keaton succumbed to - the lead character has become a dimwit. One of the greatest joys of the Lloyd silents is seeing his character think up some nimble bit of wit to get out of a jam - think hitching an ambulance ride to work in 'Safety Last' or rounding up a gang of crooks to come to prayers in 'For Heaven's Sake' - but this Harold, this audible Harold, is an unrelenting klutz. It's hardly plausible that he couldn't distinguish between Mary in her civilian clothes and in make-up on set; the kid must need glasses... oh.
Maybe it's because the character is moving at the speed of sound, rather than having the slightly fantastic under-cranked zip of silence; maybe it's because this Harold is a stuttering, stumbling, unsure boob rather than the confident, intelligent boy of yesteryear; maybe it's just because Lloyd was running out of ideas; but this is far from his best sound film, let alone being his best film of all. This was the last film with his characteristic young-go-getter persona, although by this time all the go had already got up and gone, and Lloyd himself was a less than youthful 38. Things improved a bit once Lloyd started playing a different kind of role in a different kind of film, in 'Cat's Paw' and 'Milky Way' but it was too late for a full-scale revival of his stardom.
The annoying thing about 'Movie Crazy' is that you can see how the gag sequences could have been shot in a silent film, and would have been much funnier if performed with a bit more pace and without the awkward dialogue. A prime example is the scene towards the start of the film where Harold first smashes up O'Brien's straw boater. It's just too slow and the dialogue is unnecessary. Ditto for the later scene of Harold destroying O'Brien's office - a scene which is very reminiscent of one in Keaton's 'The Cameraman' of 1928.
Apparently the original US release of this film was only 84 mins. The restored DVD version is 98 mins, and I can't help thinking that knocking a quarter of an hour out of it could help a great deal. It may well be that the reason the film has received such exalted praise in the past is because people have hitherto only seen the shorter edit. Lloyd was noted for previewing his films to bring them to perfection, and if he decreed that it should have been trimmed to 84 mins in 1932, it should have been kept that way on DVD.
I'd be keen to see the short version and give 'Movie Crazy' a second chance. This long version wears out its welcome far too quickly, and I can't believe that this cut is what Harold Lloyd wanted audiences to see.
Alas, 'Movie Crazy' is a particular disappointment, probably because it's been hyped as Lloyd's best sound film. Lloyd seems to fall into the same trap that Buster Keaton succumbed to - the lead character has become a dimwit. One of the greatest joys of the Lloyd silents is seeing his character think up some nimble bit of wit to get out of a jam - think hitching an ambulance ride to work in 'Safety Last' or rounding up a gang of crooks to come to prayers in 'For Heaven's Sake' - but this Harold, this audible Harold, is an unrelenting klutz. It's hardly plausible that he couldn't distinguish between Mary in her civilian clothes and in make-up on set; the kid must need glasses... oh.
Maybe it's because the character is moving at the speed of sound, rather than having the slightly fantastic under-cranked zip of silence; maybe it's because this Harold is a stuttering, stumbling, unsure boob rather than the confident, intelligent boy of yesteryear; maybe it's just because Lloyd was running out of ideas; but this is far from his best sound film, let alone being his best film of all. This was the last film with his characteristic young-go-getter persona, although by this time all the go had already got up and gone, and Lloyd himself was a less than youthful 38. Things improved a bit once Lloyd started playing a different kind of role in a different kind of film, in 'Cat's Paw' and 'Milky Way' but it was too late for a full-scale revival of his stardom.
The annoying thing about 'Movie Crazy' is that you can see how the gag sequences could have been shot in a silent film, and would have been much funnier if performed with a bit more pace and without the awkward dialogue. A prime example is the scene towards the start of the film where Harold first smashes up O'Brien's straw boater. It's just too slow and the dialogue is unnecessary. Ditto for the later scene of Harold destroying O'Brien's office - a scene which is very reminiscent of one in Keaton's 'The Cameraman' of 1928.
Apparently the original US release of this film was only 84 mins. The restored DVD version is 98 mins, and I can't help thinking that knocking a quarter of an hour out of it could help a great deal. It may well be that the reason the film has received such exalted praise in the past is because people have hitherto only seen the shorter edit. Lloyd was noted for previewing his films to bring them to perfection, and if he decreed that it should have been trimmed to 84 mins in 1932, it should have been kept that way on DVD.
I'd be keen to see the short version and give 'Movie Crazy' a second chance. This long version wears out its welcome far too quickly, and I can't believe that this cut is what Harold Lloyd wanted audiences to see.