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SPEAKS
a black cat, emitting a liorrible screech, dashes past mc. Well, you can imagine the reaction that screech gets."
Lloyd has long been recognized as one of the mosr patient and painstaking creators of comedy effects. Despite this trouble which he goes to in order to obtain the maximum of entertainment from a situation, he is definitely opposed to allowing anything to creep into his work that would give it the air of being labored. "Spontaneity is the thing that counts in comedies," he said. "You can't make people laugh without it. A feeling of naturalness is absolutely necessary.
"For this reason I never have a rehearsal. The camera is grinding away the very first time we start to go through with a piece of business. Sometimes the first 'take' is perfect. It may have a feeling that you never can get into it again. Or it may be no good at all. We take each scene from three to ten times in order to be sure. This may use up a lot of film — but that's the cheapest part of making pictures."
HERETOFORE the majority of productions have been slowed down by dialogue. Rather than tak
Harold as he appears in a scene from hi.s first talkie — darned clever, this Chinese.
Harold Lloyd in a tense moment from his new talking comedy. Welcome, Danger. It's a tale of dark and soul-chilling doings in mysterious Chinatown and it has more laughs than there are Tong ■wars — Flarold utilizing old and new sorts of fun devices.
Harold's richest possessions are his wife, Mildred Harris — his former leading lady — and their little girl, Gloria. And, by the way, what's missing in this picture? Right, the famous spectacles.
ing the greatest asset of the stage and applying it to the needs of the films, the movie men have taken the stage's main defea — a lack of chance to move around — and applied it to pictures. Harold has reversed this procedure. His new comedy moves just as fast as the old ones did; and also, it has the added possibilities inherent in the sound devices.
T may be added that Harold's voice is in keeping with his character of the blundering, spectacled, and intensely sincere boy who has come to win a place in the hearts of millions of fans. He fortunately has a lengthy stage experience, having been in theatricals since he was twelve years old; so the prospect of hearing himself speak does not hold the terror for him which it holds for so many of the younger film stars.
Harold wisely recognizes that people go to a comedy mainly to see the comic character, and that too much time cannot be spent on plot development. Feature length comedies necessitate story interest, but it must be secondary to the comedy business.
"The story fs the easiest part of the comedy," he declared. "We can get the story out of the way in a day, or a few days at the most. But when we are striving for humorous action and business only, we are lucky if we photograph four or five scenes {^Continued on page 95}
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