I Do

(1921) I Do SILENT COMEDY

The set up regards (Harold Lloyd) marrying his new wife (Mildred Davis) and upon coming home, their friend of two children leaves them with Lloyd and his new wife to look after.

Some of the sight gags includes the Lloyd trying to clean up the mess and mishaps of the older boy child; especially when goes out to buy fireworks and brings them home; scenes of trying to put baby to sleep; when Lloyd's newly wife tries to calm the children and put them to sleep. There is also a sequence of a prowler around the neighborhood with both Lloyd and Mildred to the housekeeper being spooked up about!

In this Harold Lloyd short, Lloyd and Mildred Davis play a newlywed couple who get stuck watching their two nephews. One is a baby, the other a toddler, and they proceed to drive Lloyd crazy as only little children can. Lloyd finds his slippers nailed to the floor, finds that preparing a bottle isn't as easy as it might seem and really finds out what it means to be a dad when the toddler comes home with an armload of fireworks and begins shooting them at him and the maid.

As far as Lloyd's short comedies go, this isn't one of his funniest, but it's only 25 minutes long, and hey, it's Harold Lloyd after all. You'll be able to see the ending coming practically before the movie has even started.

Grade: B-

This Harold Lloyd comedy has some funny sequences that are enjoyable to watch, even though it is somewhat uneven overall. Lloyd himself is always funny, and it is only a matter of providing him with decent material in order to make for good comedy. This feature pulls together several sequences with comedy ideas that very somewhat in their level of creativity, and that do not always fit together all that well.

Lloyd and Mildred Davis star as a young married couple. One of the interesting aspects of the movie is the short animated sequence at the beginning, which apparently replaced a reel of material that did not turn out as well as everyone had hoped. The main body of the film as it stands follows Lloyd and Davis as they contend with Prohibition, baby-sit some troublesome children, and deal with a neighborhood burglary threat.

A number of the gag ideas work well, and the two stars also get some help from imposing Noah Young in the second half of the movie. The young child playing their nephew is also quite believable as a young trouble-maker. There are a few stretches of relatively routine slapstick material, but the good parts make it worth seeing.

This Harold Lloyd short opens with a potentially dangerous but carefully choreographed gag in which the love-struck comedian is impervious to the heavy traffic while crossing the road. It also features an amusing gag concerning the hiding of liquor bottles by the hero and heroine inside a baby carriage, with curious bystanders wanting to peek at what they think is a baby (somehow, this subterfuge seems to have subsequently been adopted by the entire neighborhood!).

Later, the plot revolves around a lengthy set-piece in which some opportunistic relatives of the Lloyds dump their irrepressible kids in their care (considering that my family have been 'suffering' from this very same burden - with the boy in question being my own mentally-retarded cousin - for the last 17 years, I found this section of the film somewhat uneasy) but the invention here was certainly up to snuff - as when one of the children starts sawing the furniture and then nails Harold's slippers to the floor, and especially the star's disastrous attempt at preparing a bottle of milk for an infant. Also incorporated at this point is the possible intrusion into the couple's home by a suspicious-looking character (who turns out to be just the night-watchman).

This Harold Lloyd short is the story of newlyweds who use subterfuge to transport some bootleg liquor, then agree to watch a couple of children while the brother-in-law is otherwise occupied. The story includes a bad guy who seems to be checking out the neighborhood.

The best part of the film is the small section that deals with the ornery nature of the young boy left in their charge. I could have watched an entire film about the duel of wits between Lloyd and the kid.

As others have pointed out, the film is uneven, but its best parts are truly funny.