Topic: Get Out and Get Under (1920) - Harold Lloyd

[metaldams]

      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.

[HomokHarcos]

Allen Champion has mentioned the mean spirited comedy in Harold Lloyd before, and that brought my mind this short, because another writer named James Root singled out this one for its ending. He believed that that Harold kicking out the rival and taking credit for the performance and winning over Mildred was incredibly nasty. Why? Because Harold's problems are not caused by the rival. If the rival was the one who messed up Harold's alarm clock or damaged his car so he couldn't make it to the performance, it would seem more justified. Instead, most of the issues are caused by Harold himself. Sort of like how in the early cartoons Bugs Bunny comes across as more of a bully.

Now I should get to my own opinion, I don't hold fictional characters to any standard. I can like mean spirited comedy (which is why later Simpsons doesn't bother me so much). For most of the time on the road, the joke really is on Harold Lloyd. I like the part with Sunshine Sammy. Some of those Our Gang kids were very talented, unfortunately they are mostly forgotten about because the silents didn't get much TV exposure. I like how he places banana peels on the ground and deliberately causes Harold to slip, and the funniest part of all for me was when he gets excited about the car starting only to find it is the child jumping up and down.

It's always shocking seeing cocaine and heroin references in these old films.

[metaldams]

There’s no doubt Harold is mean spirited here - also check out he the way he’s oblivious to the damage he caused the man’s garden early on.  But again, for me, this is all done for comic effect, coming from a genre where, at its most basic and earliest form, involves grown men kicking other grown men on the backside, for no reason at all.  These kind of things are a little more bothersome for me when the drama they’re trying to portray are real, but here, the entire tone is comic so I’m OK with it.  The tolerance of others with this kind of thing of course varies.

[Paul Pain]

The entire heroin thing was hilarious and unexpected.  My goodness as soon as I saw the man sneaking with that I was thinking that he was going to use the stuff to energize himself to crank the ignition.  Nope!  Heroin powered car.

Sunshine Sammy was the highlight of the supporting cast.  That kid played his parts perfectly, and it would have been more charming if maybe he'd helped Harold somehow.  That entire car repair scene was played to absolute perfection.

This was possibly the most pleasant Harold Lloyd shorts we have discussed so far.

[metaldams]

I’m wondering if there has ever been a marijuana based silent comedy?  It seems the silent clowns start at booze and head straight to heroin or cocaine.

[Umbrella Sam]

I can see the perspective of the rival not doing anything wrong, but for me, I can give this one a bit of a pass because of the rival’s annoyingly perfect personality. He may not cause harm to Harold directly, but indirectly seems out to take everything from Harold. Just look at how excited he gets when he realizes he will take Harold’s part in the play; if there had at least been some hesitation there, then I could understand, but for me, Harold taking credit works for here, especially given all Harold had to deal with on the way. I do agree about how mean spirited he is to the gardener, though.

Overall, this is a consistently funny short. Sammy Morrison does a great job causing problems to Harold, my favorite moment probably being when he’s jumping up and down and making the car appear to be functioning. Add in a hilarious car chase with Harold constantly coming up with clever tricks such as moving the “road closed” sign and hiding in a tent, and you get a comedy that manages to flow very well despite mainly being focused on one scenario, which is of course the car having problems. Good short overall.