Ask Father

For those not too familiar with life almost a hundred years ago, the phrase "Ask father," meant you better get the old man's approval if you want to marry his daughter. That was a MUST, and sets up the premise for this Harold Lloyd short. He, along with several other guys, are all after the same woman but must get to the father. Unfortunately, he's a tough business leader who runs an office like a dictatorship and one runs the risk of being thrown out on his rear trying to get in and see him.

That's the gag of the movie, which doesn't really have much spark until the last six minutes when Harold gets inventive in ways to see the boss, such as wearing a suit or armor.

Without giving anything away, I will say this movie might be the ultimate in showing how lightly marriage has always been treated in the films. This is a comedy, however, so nothing to take serious anyway. I did laugh, too, at the end, when we see how much true love meant to Harold (hint: not a whole lot, as it turns out.)

At long last, I've allotted sizeable time (which should take up to the very last day of the year) to check out New Line's massive THE HAROLD LLOYD COMEDY COLLECTION 7-Disc Set!

I started off with this one, which is basically a one-joke short (albeit only 13 minutes in length) - a boy's various attempts to meet "the busiest man in town" in order to ask for his daughter's hand in marriage - which frequently has characters being shoved out of the father's office by his burly underling. Lloyd ultimately fails in his quest, but eventually finds true love with the father's secretary (played by Bebe Daniels). It's an enjoyable star vehicle which, among other things, sees Lloyd in drag; bafflingly, there's no director credit attached to this one!

In this Harold Lloyd comedy short, Lloyd plays one of many suitors wooing a rich girl with a very busy father. In order to win her hand, they have to get her father's permission first -- if they can even get an appointment to see him, that is.

This funny film is chock-full of physical pratfalls and sight gags. Lloyd storms the father's office, determined to talk to him at all costs, even if he has to don a suit of armor, impersonate a rampaging suffragette and out smart any number of office booby traps, not the least of which is a movable walk way that sends unwanted visitors sailing out the door.

I loved the ending of this movie too. Let's just say that things aren't always worth the effort it takes to obtain them.

Ask Father (1919)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Before he can marry the woman he loves Harold Lloyd must first ask for her father's permission. The only problem is that her father is the busiest man alive so getting near him will take some time. Here's a very funny one reel that has plenty of laughs throughout. The stuff with the two bouncers, one a midget, is hysterical as is the moving floor in the father's office. The scene where Lloyd climbs up the side of a building is also great.

You can get this film in New Line's Harold Lloyd Collection.

Film historians who have studied Harold Lloyd movies cite the year 1919 as being pivotal to the comedian. He began to balance delicately on a fine line between sentiment and sentimentality. There is no finer example of this transition than in his February 1919's "Ask Father."

The ritual of asking a girlfriend's dad for his daughter's hand has always been a high tension, nerve racking ritual for the prospective son-in-law. Lloyd puts the formality to the test when his girlfriend says she won't marry him without her father's permission. The hitch is her dad is almost impossible to see during his working hours, the only time he can be seen.

Witnessing several people being physically kicked out of the father's office, Lloyd knows this won't be easy. Fortunately, he has two things going for him. Next door to the office is a costume shop. And secondly, the office's secretary, Bebe Daniels, has a pillow she sets up strategically to cushion his fall whenever he gets thrown out. "Ask Father" is also one of Lloyd's first movies he's shown scaling a building's wall, something he exaggerates in his most famous film, "Safety Last!"