High and Dizzy

Harold does his balancing act off the side of a building trick in this short, joined this time by wife-to-be Mildred Davis (or her stunt double). I didn't realise he performed this stunt in so many movies – this is the fourth I've seen – but it still leaves you with your heart in your mouth when you see him waving his arms wildly as he's perched on the very edge above a multi-storey fall. No doubt it was largely done with clever camera angles, but it still looks good, especially when Harold's drunken character doesn't realise the danger he's in.

He plays a doctor in this one, and given his propensity for binge drinking and chain-smoking he could have stepped straight out of the pages of a red-top tabloid. He's not the most ethical of doctors either, declaring his undying love for his patient (the aforementioned Davis) within moments of meeting her. For some reason he feels it's important to pretend he has lots of patients and adopts a number of disguises to do so, even though his real patient is already sitting in the waiting room.

After a while the action shifts to his friend's office down the hall. He's a home-brewing enthusiast, and when the corks start popping off the bottles he's got stashed in a filing cabinet, he and Harold decide its best to drink them all rather than let them go to waste. Lloyd makes a pretty funny drunk: not as funny as Chaplin maybe, but then he's not as spiteful either, even though he does do some distinctly un-Lloyd-like things while under the influence. In fact at times he's quite removed from the boyish, straw-hat sporting Lloyd we usually see. There's no real plot to speak of, but, given the strength of the material, Lloyd probably didn't feel he needed one…

Mildred Davis sleepwalks. Her father, Wallace Howe, brings her in to Doctor Harold Lloyd for a consultation.

It's an ambitious comedy for Harold, timing in at almost half an hour.... which is, alas, a fawning way of saying that it's not as good as it might have been trimmed a bit shorter. But there's no doubt that Harold was getting popular. Yet so long as he stayed in short subjects, the money would remain likewise short, renting for so much a reel. The twenty-six minutes this one takes might not seem much to the modern audience for a blockbuster, but it allowed everyone at Hal Roach's studio to stretch a bit and see what they could do at longer lengths.

Unfortunately, it sags in the middle. Harold gets drunk with friendly bootlegger Roy Brooks, and the gags when they are together are pretty good. However, eventually Harold is off on his own, and the jokes are not as good.... and then out of nowhere, it's time to wrap up the movie.

Harold and his writers hadn't learned how to pace a longer comedy. They soon would learn; they could write a straight drama and when it didn't work out in previews, turn it into a comedy by dropping in gags, but stories don't stop and start like that.

A tipsy doctor encounters his patient (Mildred Davis) sleepwalking on a building ledge, high above the street. A subplot has Lloyd and his friend (Roy Brooks) getting inebriated on homemade liquor and then trying to avoid a prohibition-era policeman who pursues them for being drunk.

Certain aspects of this film are clearly anticipating Lloyd's more famous skyscraper-scaling scenes in "Safety Last!" and this short would make a good pairing with that film. (Criterion matches it with "The Freshman", which is fine, too.) Another reviewer commented, "It's obvious Lloyd is talented, but was still learning what roles were going to work best for him down the road." The film is further described as "uneven". I suppose I can relate. While I like this one, I will easily agree it does not rank among Lloyd's best work.

A Hal Roach HAROLD LLOYD Comedy Short.

An intoxicated Harold goes HIGH AND DIZZY when he tries to rescue the dangerously sleepwalking girl of his dreams.

This very funny film puts Harold for a few precarious minutes out on a ledge, thereby becoming one of the ‘thrill pictures' for which he is mostly remembered, especially by those who've not seen much of his work. The film was produced not long after the freak accident which destroyed half of his right hand, hence the gloves. Harold's eventual wife, Mildred Davis, plays the lovely Girl here; her longtime chum, Roy Brooks, plays the inebriated bootlegger with whom Harold shares an elaborate extended drunken sequence. Mr. Brooks would later become Harold's personal assistant at Green Acres, the Lloyd estate.

In this silent short Harold Lloyd plays a young doctor who has lack of patients.Then a father (Wallace Howe) brings her daughter (Mildred Davis) to the doctor.She has a problem with sleepwalking.The doctor pays too much attention to the daughter so the father takes them away.Harold's doctor friend (Roy Brooks) asks him to join in a drinking binge so they both get very, very drunk.Soon Harold finds himself at the same hotel as the girl is.And yes, she starts sleepwalking.High and Dizzy (1920) is directed by Hal Roach.The young Harold Lloyd gets to show his comical talent.He and Mildred Davis work great together.No wonder they got married three years later.They click in a way only a future married couple would.This movie is 26 minutes of pure fun.I found myself laughing to Mr. Lloyd's comedy more than once.