With my seeing MOVIE CRAZY I have finally seen the last of Harold Lloyd's sound films. My opinion of them remains the same - the best of them are not as good as his silent films. But on their own they are entertaining enough.
MOVIE CRAZY was a vast improvement over FEET FIRST. Done about a year after, Lloyd realized now that he had to control the use of sound when certain strenuous sequences (i.e., climbing the side of a skyscraper, or here fighting in a flooding movie set). The visual got reemphasized, and the results were better.
Lloyd comes to Hollywood having won a screen test. This is an old plot ploy where the hero/heroine thinks fame and fortune beckons, but that the reality is far less wonderful as there are thousands trying to break into films with them. Oddly Lloyd's two leading silent rivals (Chapln and Keaton) never did a spoof of the film industry in a feature (Chaplin did a Mutual short film in 1917 called BEHIND THE SCREEN that did spoof the budding young industry). Keaton's SHERLOCK JR. spoofs the magic of film making, but not the production of film itself. Harry Langdon did appear as himself in the film ELLA CINDERS where the heroine was trying to break into film.
The film follows two plots, of Lloyd getting his film test (which is typically a disaster, though the film crew maliciously tells him it was a success), and his meeting movie star Constance Cumming, which leads to a romantic involvement with her (and the growing jealousy of her co-star, Kenneth Thompson). The best portion of the film is the dinner party and the fight. Lloyd believes he was invited to a party with the Hollywood elite, and ends on the dance floor with the Louisa Closser Hale (the wife of Robert McWade, the studio head). He has accidentally changed his tales with a magician. The result is an onslaught of little animals (unfortunately including mice) that wreck the dinner dance. A highpoint: a drunk waiting his meal is surprised to find it being nibbled on by a rabbit!
The finale is the fight between Lloyd and Thompson. Thompson is an extreme egomaniac who would kill Cummings before losing her (he thinks he is her man). He helps humiliate Lloyd earlier, and when he finds Lloyd accidentally on an empty movie set beats him up. But Lloyd later thinks he sees Thompson threatening Cummings and the real fight begins.
It is actually on the set of a film where a ship is flooding, but Lloyd does not notice this (as he is concentrating on Thompson). There was a comment on another review of the film on this thread that it was reminiscent of the concluding fight in a flooded ship of Lloyd and Constantine Romanoff in THE KID BROTHER. That's true, but it also reminds one a bit (given how the water just gushes onto the set) of one of the last major silent spectacular films NOAH'S ARK. That film was famous for the massive flood on the set - supposedly so intensely flooded that some people were actually drowned in it.
The film does end well, with Harold leaving with girl and contract, and accidentally pulling one last victory over the director of his movie test (Spencer Charters), with the director's own help.
MOVIE CRAZY was a vast improvement over FEET FIRST. Done about a year after, Lloyd realized now that he had to control the use of sound when certain strenuous sequences (i.e., climbing the side of a skyscraper, or here fighting in a flooding movie set). The visual got reemphasized, and the results were better.
Lloyd comes to Hollywood having won a screen test. This is an old plot ploy where the hero/heroine thinks fame and fortune beckons, but that the reality is far less wonderful as there are thousands trying to break into films with them. Oddly Lloyd's two leading silent rivals (Chapln and Keaton) never did a spoof of the film industry in a feature (Chaplin did a Mutual short film in 1917 called BEHIND THE SCREEN that did spoof the budding young industry). Keaton's SHERLOCK JR. spoofs the magic of film making, but not the production of film itself. Harry Langdon did appear as himself in the film ELLA CINDERS where the heroine was trying to break into film.
The film follows two plots, of Lloyd getting his film test (which is typically a disaster, though the film crew maliciously tells him it was a success), and his meeting movie star Constance Cumming, which leads to a romantic involvement with her (and the growing jealousy of her co-star, Kenneth Thompson). The best portion of the film is the dinner party and the fight. Lloyd believes he was invited to a party with the Hollywood elite, and ends on the dance floor with the Louisa Closser Hale (the wife of Robert McWade, the studio head). He has accidentally changed his tales with a magician. The result is an onslaught of little animals (unfortunately including mice) that wreck the dinner dance. A highpoint: a drunk waiting his meal is surprised to find it being nibbled on by a rabbit!
The finale is the fight between Lloyd and Thompson. Thompson is an extreme egomaniac who would kill Cummings before losing her (he thinks he is her man). He helps humiliate Lloyd earlier, and when he finds Lloyd accidentally on an empty movie set beats him up. But Lloyd later thinks he sees Thompson threatening Cummings and the real fight begins.
It is actually on the set of a film where a ship is flooding, but Lloyd does not notice this (as he is concentrating on Thompson). There was a comment on another review of the film on this thread that it was reminiscent of the concluding fight in a flooded ship of Lloyd and Constantine Romanoff in THE KID BROTHER. That's true, but it also reminds one a bit (given how the water just gushes onto the set) of one of the last major silent spectacular films NOAH'S ARK. That film was famous for the massive flood on the set - supposedly so intensely flooded that some people were actually drowned in it.
The film does end well, with Harold leaving with girl and contract, and accidentally pulling one last victory over the director of his movie test (Spencer Charters), with the director's own help.