Onto our next Harold Lloyd adventure in GET OUT AND GET UNDER. This one is special to me because it’s available on the SLAPSTICK ENCYCLOPEDIA set - a set I owned before a lot of the other Lloyd shorts were readily available. So I watched this one a lot. It is an excellent short. Pretty simple set up in that after a brief and fun dream sequence opening, Lloyd oversleeps an amateur play he is supposed to act in and gets a call from Mildred to hurry up. Lloyd’s romantic rival, who married Mildred in the dream sequence, is also in the play, giving Lloyd an extra incentive to make an impression. The rest of the short revolves around Lloyd getting his car started at multiple points and when it does work, various road adventures.
There’s a lot of funny stuff here, but the highlight is definitely Harold dealing with “Sunshine” Sammy Morrison. He’s the kid who was in HAUNTED SPOOKS and after getting a solo short of his own, went on to be in the original Our Gang. Lloyd is on the road having car trouble trying to get his car to start. Sammy approaches Harold and is constantly over his shoulder, being a comic pain in the butt. Good gags with a banana peel, and ice cream cone and my favorite, Sammy on the side of the car bouncing up and down. Doing so makes it look like the car started, much to Harold’s disappointment. The grand finale is when Harold had enough and yells at the kid where he runs away, the camera is set up at an angle where you can see Sammy run for a very long distance. Really funny and well done.
Harold eventually gets his car started and how he does it must be some kind of silent comedy world thing - or maybe heroin was concocted differently back then. Yes, I said heroin. Harold sees a heroin user on the street, so he steals the man’s needle and uses it on his car. Apparently this heroin has magic powers as it gets the car to start and ride on its own. Now this is not the first time this happened in silent comedy. Very soon we will discuss Charlie Chaplin’s EASY STREET where heroin is like spinach to Popeye. I’ll save the rest for that upcoming review other than to say, both times, the heroin addict was played by Roach regular William Gillespie. An idea for a silent comedy series starring Gillespie and his trusty needle, perhaps? I guess it’s good some things never happen. But yes, pretty bizarre, in both films.
Stooge fans, there’s also the car in the tent gag while being chased by cops that will later appear in SOCK A BYE BABY - and also Lloyd’s feature PROFESSOR BEWARE. Another fun short which milks an idea, in this case getting to the play, for all it’s worth. Lots of nice car footage and outdoor California streets and neighborhoods of the early twenties. Good short, check it out.