Never Weaken

I was flipping through the channels last night and noticed a Harold Lloyd marathon on AMC. His granddaughter Suzanne has rereleased many of his films and was on the channel talking about the careers of her grandfather and grandmother (Mildred Davis, "the girl" in this film). The characters are sweet and loving and Harold Lloyd comes off as the lovelorn and innocent boy whose greatest wish is to marry his sweetheart. When he thinks she is in love with another, he plans to kill himself rather than live without her. Attempted suicide has never been so funny. Especially hilarious is the painstaking care he takes in writing the suicide note. My children (ages 5, 10, and 13) were so amused by Lloyd's antics that I was amazed. They never thought that silent films could be so expressive and funny. I love the fact that this art form is appreciated and shown on television for all to see and fall in love with all over again.

This is one of Harold Lloyd's best shorts and the second of his thrill comedies (in chronological order) to be included in this collection. The film can be neatly divided into three sections: the first sees Harold ingeniously gathering patients for the despondent clinic where his beloved, Mildred Davis, works (and which probably influenced Lloyd's later feature FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE [1926]); the second, as was the case with many a Lloyd comedy, he goes through several failed attempts at suicide (when he mistakes Mildred's clergyman brother for her lover!); the last third - and the undeniable highlight - has the star up to his neck in trouble when he ends up high in the air on a construction site (featuring some of Lloyd's most incredible stuntwork, the whole idea was borrowed by Laurel & Hardy for the second half of one of their most popular Silent shorts, LIBERTY [1929]).

This is one of Harold Lloyd's best short movies, with some very imaginative material and a lot of energy, making it quite entertaining and technically impressive. It was made during the period when Lloyd was more-or-less gradually transforming his screen persona, and both the tempo and the material benefit from the emergence of his upbeat, go-getter, slightly amoral character.

The story has two main sequences, both of which do very well in getting a lot of mileage out of an offbeat idea. The first part has Lloyd using his imagination to drum up business for an osteopath. This sequence has some funny gags, and it also benefits from Lloyd's ability to make a somewhat unscrupulous character seem nevertheless well-meaning and sympathetic.

The second part nicely combines humor and suspense, as Lloyd ends up in a lengthy series of predicaments high in the air. It's very well-crafted, making use of Lloyd's athleticism plus some creative ideas with the props and the setting. It's probably among the most memorable scenes in any of Lloyd's movies. (It's also interesting to note how many of his finest sequences have to do with heights.)

It's fun to watch, and in addition it's quite a display of talent. This is certainly one of the movies that any fan of Harold Lloyd's style of comedy would want to see.

This is a very good Lloyd short, but in some ways it's like three totally different movie shorts grafted together. The overall effect, though, is excellent and this is a wonderful short.

The first portion consists of Harold trying to help his girlfriend keep her job as a receptionist for a chiropractor by, rather unscrupulously, drumming up business for them. Harold is a bit uncharacteristically cruel during these efforts, but I gotta admit they are still quite funny.

The second segment is also a bit uncharacteristic, as Harold mistakenly thinks his girl loves another so he tries repeatedly to kill himself. This is pretty maudlin and I felt just a tiny bit uneasy laughing at suicide.

However, it then transitioned from this into a live-action version of a Sweet Pea and Popeye cartoon. You know, the one where the baby climbs onto a high-rise under construction and nearly gets killed again and again and again. Harold Lloyd handles these stunts very deftly and the film ends when he is saved and he learns that his girl not only wants to marry him but the guy she was talking to earlier turned out to be her brother--the preacher! A cute film.

Never Weaken came a year after the brilliant Haunted Spooks and touches on some of the same ideas but plays in a very different ways, including featuring an extended sequence of the stunning stunt-work best associated with Lloyd.

Where Keaton had his dour expression and acrobatics and Chaplin had the pathos and funny walk of the tramp Lloyd is best remembered for his effervescence and his stunts. The stunts are never better represented than here which sees a protracted, thrilling and funny scene when Harold finds himself stranded on the beams of a building under construction. One gag in this sequence involving a ladder is as good as they come but the whole sequence is a delight.

It might surprise people that a key theme here involves attempted suicide, something Keaton often tackled, but is less associated with the happy-go-lucky Lloyd, but it was something he visited on multiple occasions. Perfectly demonstrating what a fine line exists between comedy and tragedy this scene here explores the banalities that intrude and the difficulties of going through with such an act that when dwelt on are extremely astute but while watched are hilarious. The suicidal scenes of Haunted Spooks have bigger, and funnier gags and this is one extended scene here instead of a series of vignettes but still inspired as Harold figures out how to do it, dismissing various ways for funny, but oddly real reasons. The sequence is at it's best though when he delays the act because he gets caught up in the triviality of a miss-spelling in his suicide note! Lloyd regular (and later his wife) Mildred Davis again appears as the love interest, though has little to do here compared to some.

The film is intriguingly split into three distinct segments, the slapstick laughs of the first section where Harold is trying to get patients for the doctor Mildred works for so she won't be fired; the smart wit of the suicidal second section; and then the thrilling stunts of the final section. Whichever part of Lloyd's art you like best Never Weaken can offer it to you, however as a whole it does feel a little like 3 10 minute shorts playing one after the other.

Typically the title cards remain the most inspired and beautiful of any US silent comedian.

Well worth catching. If you don't know Lloyd you couldn't get a better introduction to his talents.