Hello fellas,
My girlfriend recently got me into Harold Lloyd, and I have to say, I can't believe this man isn't more popular than he is. It always seems like he is overshadowed by Charlie Chaplin, but in my opinion the two have totally different styles.
Anyone else like this comedic genius (not to mention snappy dresser)? If so, what's your favorite movie of his? I'd have to say mine would be "Safety Last!" or "Speedy."
I happen to like his films too, though I've only seen clips of them. Did you know he didn't need glasses? He just wore them for his character. I think it was because he didn't people recognizing him on the street.
I love Harold Lloyd. Is it possible to find any of his movies? I have seen two but can't find anymore on the internet.
Harold's by far my favorite! Chaplin's a fine star, but I've always considered him overrated. My favorite film of Harold's is "Girl Shy", it has the best chase sequence EVER. What really made Harold's "The Boy" role so successful though is that he was the "everyman" character that people identified with.
"Memory embraces the past to understand and inform the present, nostalgia dwells in an idealized past unattainable.”
Amazon still offers the Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection both new and used. This is by far the best compilation for the Harold Lloyd fan. It was issued several years ago by the Harold Lloyd Trust and contains nearly all of his feature-length movies, some shorts and many extras. I highly recommend it!Originally Posted by Atterbury Dodd
Lloyd is one of my favorite early commedians. Picking a favorite movie of his is tough. But among my favorites are "Safety Last", "Hot Water", "The Freshman" and "Speedy".
Harold Lloyd was utterly brilliant. His work generally lacks the poetry and social commentary of Chaplin and Keaton (*), but it's very funny, especially when seen with an audience. He literally was the character he played: optimistic and hard-working, he turned himself into a master comedian through sheer hard work and a long apprenticeship. And even the bomb accident that took off half his hand didn't stop him from hanging off buildings! He also sailed right into the sound era without fear, while Chaplin tried to wait it out (Keaton had much bigger problems than sound at the time) - though his talkies generally don't hold up as well his silents.
(* However, his films are more about the 1920s than Chaplin or Keaton's timeless movies. His very conventionality makes him much more of his period than they are, and his films really tell you what Americans believed back then. Of course, the other side of his regular-guyness is that during the communist witch hunt in the 1950s, he was given an honorary Oscar for being a "good citizen" at the same time that Chaplin wasn't being allowed back in to the US for his idealist politics!)
I don't think I could pick a favorite Lloyd film. All the one- and two-reelers he made after becoming "the glasses character" are great, and the early features (up to say Speedy) are all amazing laugh-generating machines!
"I'm just a regular fella - step right up and call me 'Speedy'!" - Harold's idiotic catch phrase in The Freshman
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There's a reason why Lloyd was the top-grossing comedian of the twenties -- his films were well-made, consistently funny, and always emotionally-accessible to his audience. The people of the twenties felt he was *one of them*, not some kind of ethereal sprite like Chaplin or a brooding loner like Keaton. As the Doctor says, his films were as much about the Twenties as they were about a feckless boy with glasses.
My favorite Lloyd is "Girl Shy." A more perfectly-constructed silent comedy I've never seen.
The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error. -- William Jennings Bryan
I concur that the Lloyd collection issued a few years ago on DVD is well worth the money. As perfectly remastered as you can get plus tons of outstanding extras like commentaries and one doc that show you the places today where Lloyd had filmed.
BRS
"...back in the Thirties, the style seeker learned that genuine stylishness was an extension of himself..." AF
Going back to the original post...
One of the reasons that Lloyd isn't more popular is that his films were out of circulation for many years. Ever the smart cookie, he had retained the distribution rights to most of his films, and apart from the sequences appearing in his own two theatrical compilation features of the early 60s, they weren't shown in the 50s-70s. Though there were also distribution issues with Chaplin's and Keaton's films over the years, there were always enough of them out there to see. (For example, The Gold Rush and The General were public-TV staples when I was a kid.)
When I was at the height of my Super 8 collecting phase in the mid-70s, there were only a few of Lloyd's films available. (Including Girl Shy, Lizzie, which is why it's the only Lloyd feature that I have in Super 8!) It wasn't until after his death that Time-Life brought out releases of most of Lloyd's films with a lot of hoopla. I recall going to see these in double features at NYC revival houses at the time: I expected to discover that Lloyd's films were okay, though less "brilliant" than Keaton's... but they were a revelation! (Even though these Time-Life releases were a bit bowdlerized, and were subsequently replaced with restored prints.)
So even though Lloyd's films have now been easy to see for a long time, there's a residual effect of their having been off the scope for several decades while today's elder film buffs were in their formative years. Lloyd's reputation has never quite caught up.
I love Harold Lloyd, and those glasses!
I was introduced to him through a tv program, I can't recall the name, likely aired in the late 70s. It was narrated, and basically a series of, I think, 30 minute shows taken from his films and shorts.
I'd love to get his collection on DVD, must start searching!
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