Saturday, December 16, 2023

An Eastern Westerner

This is a 1920 Harold Lloyd short, a bit under a half hour long: 

When you felt like death warmed over yesterday, I’m lucky that I could write any sort of review today. Now, it’s less like I’m knocking on heaven’s door. It’s been months since there’s been any talk of a Harold Lloyd short; this one was selected as it was amusing to think of Lloyd in a Wild West setting. In fact, this was rather amusing.

Lloyd is a “young scamp” who causes trouble in New York City by being an irresponsible rich boy so Daddy sends him out West to shape up. There, he runs afoul of TIGER LIP TOMKINS, the evil SOB that controls the town of Piute Pass and holds hostage the father of a new love interest, played by his later real-life wife Mildred Davis.

There are some quality gags and hilarious intertitles. The whole product from beginning to end isn’t my favorite but think of that as high praise for his filmography rather than my knocking this. Jokes involve a barrel, a horse and a lasso; it uses the setting, as you can see. As for one of the most prominent images advertising the short is a phalanx of guns pointed by unseen individuals at Lloyd’s head… whether or not this was the first instance, it is hilarious that the same idea was used almost 100 years later for one of the most popular John Wick: Chapter 2 posters.

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