Search - The Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection Vol. 1 on DVD

ONE OF HAL ROACH'S BEST COMEDIANS

John Profetto | Hamilton, Ontario Canada | 01/27/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Harold Lloyd was definetly among the silent movie era's best comedians.My two favourite films in this compilation are Safety Last and Girl Shy.Until I bought this DVD set,I had only seen the image of Harold dangling from the clock near the top of the building.So I finally got to see the actual movie.It was nerve wracking.Our Gang member Joe Cobb appears at the beginning of Girl Shy.But my favourite part of this film is when Harold tries to stop a certain wedding from taking place.First he steals a streetcar,then a cop's motorcycle,than a wagon pulled by two horses.He really made those horses run.Hilarious.

I have to agree about the two Harold Lloyd talkies,The Cat's Paw and The Milky Way.Pretty cheesy in comparison to his silent films.Especially The Cat's Paw.That film's final scene is rather disturbing."

Essential Survey of Lloyd's Work

Robert Morris | San Francisco | 04/23/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This volume is the best to buy if you are not planning to develop a complete library of Harold Lloyd's work. This volume contains Safety Last, with the iconic image of Lloyd dangling from the clock hands as he tries to scale a high rise to execute a publicity stunt for the department store he works for. This movie is not nearly the most satisfying of Llyod's output, but it is entertaining. Much funnier and better executed is Why Worry, about a millionaire hypochondriac who takes a vacation for his health in a volatile Latin American country in the grips of civil war. The sheer quantity and continuity of funny moments in this movie is breathtaking, and is about the best introduction to Lloyd's genius as you can get. By the time of this movie, Lloyd had developed his most successful formula: his character typically has a flaw (shyness, hypochondria) that needs to be overcome. Challenged by a bully and/or the love of a beautiful girl, Harold jumps into almost super-human action. We see this formula in An Eastern Westerner and Girl Shy as well. But Why Worry is, in terms of sheer persistent laughter, the best of this collection.

The other movies made at the prime of this career, including Girl Shy, An Eastern Westerner, and From Hand to Mouth, are also priceless gens. This collection also contains glimpses into the early and late careers of Lloyd, and effectively demonstrates that his productivity spanned a long interval of time. The earliest film in the collection, Ask Father, is remarkably charming, funny and creative. Lloyd's early glasses character tended to be all energy, with few character flaws except perhaps obsessiveness. Here Lloyd's character is infatuated with a businessman's daughter, and much of the humor derives from his repeated attempts to gain access to the elusive father to ask his permission to marry his fickle offspring. Bebe Daniels, Lloyd's first romantic partner in his movies, is very funny and appealing in this and other of Lloyd's movies of the time.

This collection also shows that during the sound era Lloyd, while no longer in his prime creatively, was still producing interesting, creative ventures. Of the two sound movies in this collection, by far the best is Cat's Paw, in which Lloyd portrays a naive but determined Chinese missionary's son who returns to the big city to find a woman to marry. Some of the gags here, especially the faked execution sequence at the end, is a bit forced, but the story is interesting and there are still moments of genius to witness. Milky Way, chronologically the last in the series, has very little going for it and will be of interest only to die hard Lloyd enthusiasts."