Harold Lloyd Has Something to Say: The Silent Master’s Funniest Talkie
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The question that was asked of the great actors and actresses of silent film with the coming of sound was simple: Could they speak? Could they adapt the styles they had developed to the demands of dialogue and be as convincing to audiences who could hear them as they had been when they were only seen? But the silent movie comedians had a different and perhaps greater problem. They were original, singular creatures, born and raised in silence. They flew through worlds of their own making, unbound by the laws of commonality that affected the rest of us. Sound could only ground them in a reality they neither needed nor wanted. The question that beset the clowns went beyond “Could they speak?” to become “Why talk at all?” Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp expressed his emotions with every swerve of his balletically agile body. The stoical Buster Keaton could say more with a slight shift of his eyes than most actors could with a soliloquy. And man-child Harry Langdon? He was clearly preverbal.
Of the great silent comedians, Harold Lloyd would seem to have been in the best position for the shift to sound. He had created a screen character as much like the average man as possible. No outsize costume or greasepaint makeup for him—just a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and the occasional straw hat. His comedy came from taking this man who might pass us on the street and walking him one plausible step at a time into a world of outrageous misfortune. No major rethinking should have been needed to let this fellow talk. And his lightly inflected voice seemed just right to sustain the illusion of youthfulness he had always played (he was thirty-six at the time of his first talkie).
But Lloyd’s transition to sound would be rockier
than anyone might have anticipated. He had already shot what he
meant to be his last silent film when he decided to reshoot enough to make it
his first talkie. Released in 1929, Welcome Danger was the greatest
commercial hit of his career. Audiences clearly wanted to hear Harold talk. But
the film itself was terrible, arguably the worst of his prime (well, you might
argue—I’d say case closed). It has no discernable structure or story, a paucity of first-class
gags, and Lloyd had his beloved glasses character behave in ways that made him
thoroughly unlikable, even obnoxious (why?!). It’s hard to reconcile the Harold
Lloyd of Welcome Danger with the man who, a year earlier, had delivered the dazzling Speedy. And
his second sound film, Feet First (1930), was only slightly better, despite
a new building-hanging thrill sequence meant to remind audiences of how much
they had loved his classic Safety Last! (1923). And there was a shocking drop-off at the
box office.
But Harold Lloyd, the
artist, shared with his on-screen persona a determination to succeed, against
all odds. And he was going to make certain that his third sound film, Movie
Crazy, would be his best.
To give the film structure, he turned to a premise that had worked for him in several of his silent classics, notably Safety Last! and The Freshman. Again, he would tell the tale of a young man leaving home to pursue his chosen profession. Here, he would go to Hollywood to be a movie star. As in his previous films, he would fail spectacularly before persistence and luck would bringhis improbable dream to reality, with love thrown in as a bonus. But this time, his completely effective use of sound would makeMovie Crazy seem fresh and contemporary while still feeling warmly familiar to his longtime fans.
Lloyd hired top gagman Clyde Bruckman, who had previously worked with Lloyd and Buster Keaton on many of their greatest films, to direct. Unfortunately, Bruckman was an alcoholic and simply not up to the demands of the job. Lloyd wound up directing the bulk of the film himself while letting Bruckman retain the credit as a favor. As costar Constance Cummings would later relate, Lloyd would prepare the scene the way he wanted it and then the “director” would make sure Lloyd’s vision was accomplished.So it’s likely fair to credit Lloyd with the fluid and imaginative camera work used to take in the constant motion of life atthe studio in which Harold seeks his fortune. Especially memorable is a crane shot late in the film that starts by showing all the equipment and activity surrounding the stage where a scene is to be shot and then moves down and forward until we are completely inside the scene itself.
The comedy sequences in Movie Crazy are Lloyd’s strongest since Speedy. Upon arriving in Hollywood, Harold stumbles into a film being made and is asked to be an extra—a simple task that he fumbles in gag after gag. Later, given a screen test, he blows that too, and we see this not as it happens but in the rushes shown to the increasingly exasperated studio execs. Each “take” becomes a discrete gag, aided toward laughter by how the picture and sound speed up as the clips run out.
The highlight of the film sees Lloyd again turning toward the past for inspiration. Perhaps the most memorable sequence of The Freshman finds Harold at a dance wearing a suit that the tailor has only had time to baste. The comedy comes from Harold’s desperate attempts to keep the pieces of his suit attached to his body. At a dance in Movie Crazy, Harold accidentally switches his coat with a magician’s (It’s comedy. Just roll with it). The laughs build as Harold keeps pulling unexpected surprises, some quite alive, from the coat. Whereas in Feet First the addition of sound damages the thrill sequence (street noises and Harold’s cries for help making it too realistic for comfort), here sound helps. There is little dialogue, but dance music fills out the soundtrack, as do the increasingly vocal reactions of the other guests. In essence, Lloyd has created a silent comedy routine that feels just as natural with sound. It’s one of his greatest sequences. (It certainly stuck with Bruckman, who lifted and reused it in two separate films, one a Three Stooges short, leading Lloyd to sue him. Lloyd ultimately won, albeit for far less monetary damages than he had asked.)
But Lloyd knew he
needed something more than great gag sequences to make his best sound feature.
He needed something to say beyond the simple chatter he used in the earlier talkies,
something audiences might actually care to listen to. So he moved beyond his
usual gag writers to add two intriguing names to the credits.
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