A Sammy in Siberia

A Harold Lloyd short that's harmless enough but not all that sophisticated. Brr it's cold in Siberia, especially for the guy from California. Haha, look at how silly those (highly stereotypical) Bolsheviks are. Oh, be careful of that dog named Fidovitch. Maybe the best bit is when Harold lays down behind a log and kicks the Russians one by one so that they all tumble down the snowy embankment. And here I was hoping for a Samoyed doggo based on the title.

Harold Lloyd takes a break from his Lonesome Luke 2 reelers to find himself out in the cold in what may well be the first film to depict Bolshevism (albeit with slapstick comedy) to the world given their fresh takeover of Russia as vodka swilling brutes with cowardly leaders. If this was the viewpoint of the public of the day then world communism was off to a poor start.

Sammy from Chicago (Lloyd) has little difficulty with the cold weather of the USSR, just problems with directions, soon finding himself isolated from the rest of his troop. He comes upon a home under siege by dreaded Bolshis and rushes to defend while falling for his favorite co-star Bebe Daniels.

The slapstick is heavy handed, the pratfalls poorly choreographed with characters constantly bumping into themselves. Daniels is adorable, Lloyd abrasive, his stunts uninspired. Less then tepid Harold.

Oldga (Bebe Daniels) is the daughter of a honest peasant in Siberia. Count Pop-up-skyvitch (Snub Pollard) leads the Bolsheviks and a couple of captured women to their doorstep. Sammy Strong (Harold Lloyd) is a hopeless private in the American contingent. He gets separated from his squad and stumbles upon the small fight.

I don't know about the jazzy music at the beginning. They quickly switch to a traditional Russian song and an American score for the American soldiers. Harold has his glasses, but not his everyman getup. He does get in some action, but there is no big stunt. They also get in a jab at Chicago. This is fine.

Sammy in Siberia, A (1919)

*** (out of 4)

Set during the Russian Revolution, this film has Harold Lloyd playing an American soldier who gets taken to a cabin where a Russian beauty (Bebe Daniels) expects him to defeat the Red Coats trying to break in. Having a film set during this period of Western history isn't normal and as many other reviews have pointed out, I'm not certainly how many others even attempted. This short was released by Unknown Video and there's even an intro talking about the strange circumstances to set the picture. With that said, fans of Lloyd will certainly want to check this out. Why he doesn't give the type of Lloyd performance that he's best known for, I thought the energy given was still enough to make this worth viewing. The film runs just around 7-minutes so you really shouldn't be expecting any type of major plot. What we've got are a few cute jokes including one where Lloyd gets separated from the other troops and ends up getting chased by a tree by a dog. Another funny gag has him taking a nip of alcohol and it nearly turning him made. The film was obviously shot on a set but I thought the exteriors of the cabin were quite good. Lloyd and Daniels have some nice chemistry together and at such a short running time there's enough laughs to make it worth viewing.

This film came out right before Harold Lloyd's career accelerated to super-stardom. While his persona is closer to the nice "everyman" he played throughout the twenties (looking like him and acting like him at times), the style of humor is still grounded very much in the slapstick past as Lloyd ultimately resorts to standard punching, kicking and acrobatics to defeat an evil band of Cossacks--later, he might have done SOME of this but would have used him brains more to gain the upper hand.

Historically speaking, the film is also very important. Most people have forgotten about an interesting part of Russian and Western history. After WWI, Allied and Central Power armies briefly occupied parts of Russia during the Revolution and this appears to be the setting for the film. As far as I know, this is the only comedy set in this time and place--something very unusual for the era.