Kalte Milch und heiße Fäuste

Harold Lloyd was a master of the comic sequence. He would put together 40 or 50 rapid-fire gags, each one building on the one before and knock you out of your seat with laughter with each brilliant ten or fifteen or ten minute sequence. The only problem with most of his films is a little weakness in connecting the sequences. Leo McCarey is not a gag craftsman. He just brings on one gag after another and hardly cares if they're connected or make sense. In his masterpiece, the Marx Brother's "Duck Soup," this style passes for zaniness and fits well with the anarchistic persona of the brothers.

In this case, it sabotages Lloyd's genius. Here we have Lloyd's usual lightly connected sequences, but the weakness is compounded by McCarey's disconnection of the gags within a sequence. You can feel Lloyd fighting to connect the set of gags into a sequence and McCarey just moving on to a different set of gags. Only in the last boxing sequence does Lloyd manage to put together 15 or 20 gags for a hilarious sequence, but the five or six minutes here is still much shorter than the great gag sequences in most of his other films. There is also a wonderful sequence between Lloyd and a horse. I suspect if McCarey had allowed Lloyd to expand it for another five minutes, it would have become a classic.

Lloyd gets some serious comic help here from Adolphe Menjou and Lionel Stander. Menjou plays sleazy better than any else. Like the brilliantly scheming lawyer he played in "Roxie Hart," here he plays a brilliantly scheming boxing promoter. Stander plays the body guard/funny tough-guy type he always did so well. Lionel Stander makes every scene he's in interesting. Even when he's in a terrible movie like Roman Polansky's "Cul de Sac," (1966) his acting manages to save scene after scene. There's a little political irony here. Adolphe Menjou was a friendly conservative witness before HUAC in the 1950's, while Lionel Stander was blacklisted for his communist beliefs.

Lloyd also gets help from Menjou's beautiful wife Verree Teasdale. She delivers some sharp wisecracks that she somehow sneaks past the Hay's Office, and Helen Mack as his sweet sister. Both woman are fine, but are hamstrung by the little screen time their characters are given.

This is an interesting movie to compare to Lloyd's last masterpiece, "The Sin of Harold Diddlebock" (Preston Sturges, 1947). There is a short scene of less than one minute with a lion and Lloyd. There is just two or three gags. They're funny, but then the lion disappears from the film. In Diddlebock, Lloyd appears with "Jackie the Lion." This time he uses the lion for about 100 gags in a great classic 30 minute sequence that both sums up and ends his motion picture career.

It is sad to think that "Milky Way" was considered a success at the time of its release, while "Diddlebock" was considered a failure.

I have fond memories of "The Milky Way".Around 6 or 7 years ago I was working my way through one of those 50 movies sets.You know,those cheaply packaged box sets that always end up having some really good classic movies in them? Anyway,I stuck a disc in my player and sat down to watch some movie I had never heard of before.Of course it was "The Milky Way" with Harold Lloyd,and as I watched I couldn't take my eyes off this cute & funny young man in glasses. After I finished watching this wonderful classic gem,I had to know one thing: Who in the heck IS Harold Lloyd? Well,I did some online checking and found out,and since then I have become a total fan.I now own everything of his that's available and it seems like I became a fan just in the nick of time since THE Harold Lloyd(Newline)box set was just released. Just a small word of advice to anybody who doesn't like this movie.Try something else of Harold Lloyd's.He made so many wonderful films like "Grandma's Boy","Safety Last" "The Freshman" and my favorite "The Kid Brother".You won't be sorry you did.

This entertaining film deals with a timid milkman named Burleigh Sullivan (the name of the lead character, "Burleigh" is an inside joke since it sounds like "burly" which means 'strongly and heavily built, husky' which the character is not) . Sullivan (Harold Lloyd), somehow knocks out a boxing champ in a brawl. The newspapers get hold of the story and photographers even catch Burleigh knock out Speed again . Speed's crooked manager (Adolphe Menjou) decides to turn Burleigh into a boxer . Burleigh doesn't realize that all of his opponents have been asked to take a dive. Thinking he really is a great boxer , Burleigh develops a swelled head which puts a crimp in his relationship with pretty girl called Polly Pringle (Dorothy Wilson) . He may finally get his comeuppance when he challenges fighter Speed (William Gargan) for the title. So the sleazy manager decides to substitute him with Sullivan , who is now groomed for stardom. Naive Burleigh does everything the crook says, only to be blamed when it all explodes in their faces big time.

This light-hearted comedy and enjoyable story is basically a showcase for the many talents of Lloyd , as a frail man mistaken for a potential champion and probably to be Harold's last classic picture . The yarn is appropriate , but no equal to Lloyd previous silent productions. Amusing acting by Harold Lloyd as a shy milkman Burleigh Sullivan who accidentally knocks out drunken Speed McFarlane, a champion boxer who was flirting with Burleigh's sister . Harold plays a milque-toast weak man , a funny and totally extroverted Lloyd who thinks he really won all those fights that he was signed up by crooked manager Adolphe Menjou who shows to have a big flair for slapstick comedy . Features great support cast such as Helen Mack , William Gargan and Lionel Stander will repeat his role from this original version ten years later and film debut of Anthony Quinn. Producer Samuel Goldwyn bought the rights for the property in the mid-1940s for his remake The kid of Brooklyn (1946), as well as the original negative and almost all existing prints, and destroyed them. The ending struggle scenes for the championship is hysterically fun , an adequate material for Harold LLoyd's physical skills . Beautifully filmed in black and white cinematography as well as atmospheric musical score . It proved to be a very profitable film , being this original rendition with Lloyd and McCarey crisper and funnier than subsequent retelling . The motion picture was professionally directed by Leo McCarey ; however , when director was in the hospital, Norman Z. McLeod directed some of the scenes . The film is definitely for the lighthearted.

This flick has been adapted several times , as firstly the original play opened at the Cort Theatre in New York on 8 May 1934 and closed in July 1934 after 63 performances , titled the Milky Way (1934) , written by Lynn Root and Harry Clork , directed by William W. Schorr with a cast formed by : John Brown, Brian Donlevy (as "Speed McFarland"), Leo Donnelly (as "Gabby Sloan") , Edward Emerson, William Foran, Gladys George (as "Anne Westey"), Emily Lowry, Hugh O'Connell (as "Burleigh Sullivan") . And reworked a decade later by Samuel Goldwyn as The kid from Brooklyn (1946) , it even features some of the same supporting characters the Lloyd version . The big difference is the addition of the songs , the players are : Danny Kaye as Burleigh Sullivan, Virginia Mayo as Polly Pringle , Vera-Ellen as Susie Sullivan , Steve Cochran as Speed McFarlane , Eve Arden as Ann Westley , Walter Abel as Gabby Sloan , Lionel Stander as Spider Schultz . Furthermore , The Hedda Hopper Show - This Is Hollywood" broadcast a 30 minute radio adaptation of the movie on March 22, 1947 with Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo reprising their film roles. And finally a special version titled ¨The Calcium kid¨ (2004) starred by Orlando Bloom , Michael Lerner , Billie Pipper , David Kelly ,in which an English bachelor milkman, 'accidentally' knocks down his boxing club's champion as stand-in sparring partner.

In this very solid Harold Lloyd screwball comedy, Lloyd plays an unassuming milk delivery man who finds himself on the front pages when he's credited with knocking out the world middle-weight boxing champion, Speed McFarland, in a street brawl. The negative publicity this news generates for McFarland comes much to the dismay of McFarland's manager, the slick Adolphe Menjou, who instantly plans a damage-control scheme. Lloyd will go up against a number of other boxers and win in fixed fights, building anticipation for a rematch against McFarland, in which McFarland will clobber him in the first round, since Lloyd doesn't really know how to fight. Of course, nothing plays out as simply as it should, and all manner of hijinks and supporting characters find themselves mixed up in this zany plot.

I was impressed by the tight screenplay for "The Milky Way." It's classic 30s screwball, which means the script doesn't have to make a lot of sense, but even so the scriptwriters flesh out little details in the action -- like a thug who can't read, or Lloyd's affection for his milk cart horse, Agnes -- that play a role later in the plot. And the film is filled with all manner of sight gags and one-liners. Some of my favorite set pieces are the ones in which Menjou's sardonic girlfriend, played like a champ by Verree Teasdale, an actress I've never heard of, teaches Lloyd how to box by turning his training into a dance lesson; and a hilarious bit that finds Lloyd racing to his big match with McFarland while lugging around a colt, offspring of the beloved Agnes. Director Leo McCarey knows how to stage physical comedy, and the frame at any given time is stuffed with all manner of characters doing or saying something completely separate from what everybody else is doing or saying, so that the reigning visual style of the film is controlled chaos.

"The Milky Way" may not be in the same league as some of its screwball contemporaries, like "My Man Godfrey" or "Bringing Up Baby," but I guarantee it will put a smile on your face.

Grade: B+

I was fortunate enough to catch this at a private screening as I understand there was an attempt to destroy all copies when the remake with Danny Kaye was made. I have seen both and this version is far superior. Harold Lloyd is incredibly funny and his comic timing has to be among the best. If you get a chance, catch this one. 8 out of 10.