Harold Lloyd
April 5, 2003
The image is indelible, a moment in time, on time, and forever imbedded in time as one of those memorable silent film moments. The image is impossibly famous, a man in a suit and tie with a straw hat and horn rimmed glasses climbs the side of a department store building and almost falls, catching himself on the hands of a giant clock and dangles.
The man was Harold Lloyd, the famous silent film star, the clock was on the International Bank Building at Temple and Spring in Los Angeles, and the result was the hair raising climax to “Safety Last”, Lloyd’s 1923 blockbuster. It only looked dangerous, through trick photography and some “safety platforms” from three differing rooftops Lloyd and his crew were able to make the stunt look like he was indeed defying death, it was a classic gag, not uncommon in the glory days of silent film comedy where Buster Keaton could have the side of a house fall on him in such a precision way that he’s saved only by the tiny attic window or Charlie Chaplin could have a whole shack teeter on the brink of falling into a mountain cavern.
Modern audiences may only know Harold Lloyd from this iconic image, for his films, unlike those of his two great contemporaries, Chaplin and Keaton, are very hard to find and for years were only available, due to sticky copyright laws, on long out of print and badly transferred videos or through even rarer public screenings.
Now, a godsend, Turner Classic Movies, in conjunction with The Harold Lloyd Trust have obtained the rights to 25 of Lloyd’s best and recently restored silent and sound films and will be dedicating Sundays in April to showing them all, for Lloyd is their star of the month.
This truly is a miracle to anybody slightly interested in silent film comedy and in Harold Lloyd, who in the 20’s was one of the most popular figures in the movies, constantly out-grossing Keaton, and rivaling Chaplin for the audiences adulation and money.
Myself, a connoisseur of silent films have been fascinated in Harold Lloyd and his career for a long time, but have only been able to track down six of his films, unlike Chaplin and Keaton who I’ve seen almost everything, thanks to their wide availability and popularity. I hold the three clowns in equal regard, Chaplin as the tramp, the satirist, Keaton as the great stone-face and most skilled auteur of the three (his 1927 masterpiece “The General” is one of the 10 best films of all time in my opinion), and Lloyd as the unlikely hero, the everyday Joe who more often than not finds himself in extraordinary situations involving great chases (a silent comedy staple) and last minute heroics to save the day.
One of the reasons Lloyd was so popular in the late teens with his short two and three reelers and later in the ‘20s with his feature length films for the Pathe company and then with Paramount was because the audiences could identify with him, he was likable. With those trademark round glasses, awe shucks boyish quizzical looks, and exciting, often dangerous (with “Safety Last” he was labeled “The king of daredevil comedians”) climaxes, his films were pure entertainment, and the public ate them up.
“Safety Last”, (airing April 20th) the one where Harold dangles from the clock, made 1.6 million dollars, a huge amount of money for a 1923 film, and over the next five years the grosses only went up. In 1925, at the height of his popularity, he released “The Freshman” (widely considered his best film, airing April 6th) and grossed 2.6 million dollars, only second to Chaplin’s famous “The Gold Rush” for total money earners in ’25. The success of “The Freshman” led to a landmark contract with Paramount that would make him one of the richest men in Hollywood.
Leaving his home at Pathe and cutting ties with Hal Roach, comedy pioneer and his early director, Paramount offered Lloyd an unheard of 77 ½ percent of the domestic gross for all his upcoming releases, which subsequently netted him over two million in pocket change. All of this money and popularity went to his head and he became a notorious spender, building a mammoth Italian style mansion, Greenacres, which took four years to complete and fit in with the times of Hollywood silent star decadence.
Living with his wife, former costar Mildred Davis at Greenacres until his death on March 8th, 1970 Lloyd weathered the coming of sound to pictures well, and remained popular, but eventually, like Keaton, and like Greenacres decades later, his career in talking pictures crumbled. Silent film was an art form, and when the microphone was introduced, the zany antics of the comedians gave way to literary adaptations and static set bound dramas, the chases stopped.
Besides the famous clock sequence and the lavish decadence of Greenacres the other thing modern audiences may know about Lloyd is that he wore a prosthetic glove on his right hand. In 1920 an accident involving a prop bomb caused Lloyd to lose his right thumb and forefinger and for the rest of his life he wore a special skin colored glove with two wooden fingers that on screen is sometimes noticeable, but just the same is often flawless in its natural appearance. Lloyd would make the bulk of his work with that glove and it seemed, on screen anyway, to never get in his way.
During the early days of television, when old movies enjoyed new life through airings, Lloyd held tightly to his films saying that broken up with commercials his films would look silly on the smalls screen, and didn’t allow them to be shown, thus shutting out a possible new audience. This, despite a revival in the ‘70s after his death, may have led to the poor availability of his films and the general lack of knowledge of his great works by a modern audience (as opposed to his two rivals).
Now this month, thanks to Turner Classic Movies, said modern audience (not just hardcore fans like myself) have the pleasure of seeing the comedians films, all of the feature length silents, a handful of the two and three reelers, and five of his “talkies”.
Personally, I’m looking forward to finally being able to watch those that I’ve had a hard time finding, such as “The Freshman”, or “For Heaven’s Sake” (his first Paramount picture, airing April 6th) and especially the early Pathe shorts like “Grandma’s Boy” (1922, airing April 27th), which Lloyd regarded as his favorite pre-“Safety Last” film.
A highlight to look out for is “The Kid Brother” (1927, airing April 6th), in my opinion Lloyd’s masterpiece, a film in which he plays the youngest of a sheriff’s family who has to step up and save the family from crooks. The film includes two of his most famous gags, one where he climbs a tree, higher and higher, waving goodbye to his girlfriend, who is walking away down a mountain, farther and farther. And another where a villain hits him on the head with an iron bar, bending the bar, but not hurting his head, as he reveals his head was under an unseen beam. It’s sight gags like these that equaled any of Keaton’s masterful setups.
Also look out for “Speedy” (1928, airing April 6th) his last silent film, shot entirely in New York City and serves as much as a time capsule as it does a frenetic chase and gag comedy. Babe Ruth, Coney Island, a funny dog and a crab all have cameos. Watch for the final 20-minute chase in “Girl Shy” (’24, airing April 20th), it’s one of his best set pieces, or “Hot Water” (1924, airing April 20th), a feature that plays like an anthology of three hilarious shorts with Lloyd as a newlywed with mother-in-law problems and featuring a trolley ride with an armful of grocery bags and a live turkey. You’ll have to see it to believe it, it’s a memorable moment.
And finally, there is “Safety Last” and that masterful series of gags that leads Lloyd up to his clock swinging. All of these bits are just the tip of the iceberg. There will be hundreds of these little treasures throughout the TCM Lloyd festival.
So if you’re a fan of Chaplin or Keaton, silent film, or comedy in general, I urge you to tune in Sundays this month and discover the inherent joys of Harold Lloyd, our unsung film comedy genius. I know my VCR will be working overtime.
For more information go to www.turnerclassicmovies.com or www.haroldlloyd.com
by Adam Suraf