I watched and taped all of TCM's tribute to Harold Lloyd last year, and have recently been working my way through the last few items I taped but hadn't watched. Wanting to turn my girlfriend on to Lloyd, I asked her to watch this short, made after he had established his "glasses character" but before he made the move to longer, feature-length films. HIGH AND DIZZY is the perfect introduction to Harold Lloyd's brand of comedy. As a doctor with few patients (he has cobwebs on his office phone), Lloyd shows great personal charm and the gags are brilliantly devised to move fast yet work a routine in every possible way before moving on from it. For instance, one scene where Lloyd helps his friend (they are both inebriated) put on a coat, and there is a telephone pole between the man's back and his coat, occurs naturally in the plot sequence, is milked every possible way for about thirty or forty seconds, and then leads to another ridiculous situation. The whole film is that well-constructed. Lloyd's great physical skills are in evidence throughout. Of course, there has to be a "danger" element in a Lloyd film, so here he (and his sleepwalking female patient) are put on a ledge. A drunken man AND a sleepwalker on a ledge about twenty stories high! Now THAT is a brilliant set-up for comedy. The clarity of the copy of the film provided to TCM by the Lloyd estate is sparkling, and Robert Israel's musical score, which subtly works sound effects (pratfalls, ringing telephones) into the musical compositions, helps to move the film along and also helps people not used to watching silent films to appreciate what is happening. It's sometimes hard to get an average person to watch a feature-length silent film, so HIGH AND DIZZY might be the perfect short to show someone as an example of Harold Lloyd's dazzling comedy genius. I heard a rumor that SAFETY LAST may be shown theatrically in 2005--let's hope that's true. Imagine how wonderful it will be to see Harold Lloyd's most famous "thrill comedy" on the big screen!
