The Photo-Play Journal (Jul 1919-Feb 1921)

October, 19 20 21 Harold Lloyd and Mildred Davis thin, and won their battle for screen comedy that is not merely mildly humorous, but as essentially comic as are the classic comedies of the stage. That is why a Lloyd comedy, more successfully than probably any other screen example, withstands the acid test of the professors. If scientists and philosophers now living who occupy themselves with the formulation of laws classifying the various elements which produce the phenomena of the comic should analyze the latest Lloyd comedy, for example, called "High and Dizzy," they could lay aside Moliere's "Le Malade Imaginaire," "Tartuffe," and "Le Medecin Malgre Lui" in favor of an up-to-date screen illustration; which would be the part of wisdom, as the Lloyd example actually produces laughter in an age and from an audience to whom Moliere is caviare. There is little evidence in their works that comic authors know or care anything about the laws that account for the production of laughter which the professors have formulated with so much care. Otherwise probably they would have missed, their point through temptation to avail themselves of all these numerous laws in the construction of a single comedy. Working from the standpoint, each of his own innate sense of the comical, they were economical as to principles and effective in the application of their own characteristic comic angle. Moliere was especially keen on the comic effect of a repetition by different characters, in different scenes, of the same speeches and details of action. Hence the law formulated by Henri Bergson: "In a comic repetition of words we generally find two terms : a repressed feeling, which goes off like a spring, and an idea that delights in repressing the feeling anew." Lloyd specializes in "the logic of the absurd." which Theophile Gautier de Bebc Daniels, whose splendid work with Lloyd started her on the road to fame dared exhibited the comic in its extreme form. Under this head naturally falls the celebrated dictum of Emmanuel Kant : "Laughter is the result of an expectation which, all of a sudden, comes to nothing." And always, or upon occasion, rather, there* is the associated laughable element defined by the words "mechanical inelasticity." This may be the result of the obsession of a fixed idea, more often of absent-mindedness, in which mental condition the same movements of the body and limbs continue, with the most absurd results, in spite "of changed physical conditions of environment. La Bruyere utilized this principle— which he is said to have discovered and analyzed — in the form of a recipe for the wholesale manufacture of comic effects. Whatever theme or motive will furnish a situation in which "the logic of the absurd" enters naturally seems to stimulate the happiest powers of Harold Lloyd in developing his screen comedies. "High and" Dizzy" is a particularly happy example. It hardly could be otherwise, with the central idea exhibiting an accidentally inebriated youth in love-smitten pursuit of a pretty sleep-walker at night in a strange hotel. Sleep-walkers are notoriously fearless and sure-footed. To pursue one of them in and out of windows and along narrow ledges several stories above the street demands an abnormal condition on the part of the pursuer. This is supplied quite naturally through the sudden necessity of "saving" several bottles of "home brew" which had developed its dynamic powers with unexpected celerity. The resulting condition of the young hero enables him to exhibit an unconsciousness of danger most laughably absurd. When that condition wears off his comic terror is equally laughable. He hugs the wall, daring not to look down. His abundant and rather long hair stands on end, each individual hair erect and quivering forth its separate expression of horror — all of which is most logically absurd. But throughout it is the logical absurdity of the action of the numerous "gags," the comic connecting links of the story, that provokes the most hilarious moments in the audience. Naturally, the two young savers of the "home brew" feel responsible for each other's health and safety. On their devious route homeward the little one (Lloyd) is persistent in his efforts to get the big one into his overcoatv The nearest approach to success finds them buttoned in together. At length the big fellow slumps upright against a post and goes to sleep standing. The little one seizes the opportunity, but in buttoning up the overcoat he has failed to observe that it also contains the post, which is now entirely invisible. Then comes the comic mistification of the little fellow. He cannot understand why his friend should be as immovable as a rock, neither can the other. They are sleepy, they want to go home — and arc forcibly detained by a deep mystery. The little fellow's scientific curiosity is aroused. He walks unsteadily around his immovable friend, views the phenomenon from every angle, tugs him this way and that — all without any enlightenment. Finally he gets behind the big fellow and stoops down to find out in what strange manner his feet are so firmly anchored to the sidewalk. He lifts the tails of the long coat and, for the first time, becomes aware of the post. He studies it reflectively. He decides to pull up the post and take it along. It can't be done. Then it dawns upon him that the overcoat is to blame, as it envelops both man and post. Great discovery ! The remedy at last is obvious. The little man seizes the tails of the coat at the bottom, rips it deliberately up the back seam through the collar — and walks off with his friend as though nothing" (Continued on page 62)