A Sammy in Siberia

The American intervention in the newly formed Soviet Union is a topic little discussed today. I'll bet that 99 people today out of 100 don't even know that in the waning hours of World War I Woodrow Wilson ordered a limited intervention there. A bunch of powers chiefly the USA, the UK and Japan intervened in the Russian Revolution hoping to counteract what Winston Churchill called the 'tubercular bacillus'of Bolshevism. Of course it didn't work, but in 1919 we had troops there and it provided the setting for this short Harold Lloyd comedy Sammy In Siberia.

Lloyd is his usual shy everyman self who happens to be around when the Bolsheviks come calling on a farm house and luckily Bebe Daniels was not violated by them.

In rescue situations you take what you can get and things don't look promising when she finds Lloyd up a tree chased by her Siberian husky dog. Still Lloyd comes through in a most unorthodox way.

As for the title American soldiers in that era were called doughboys. But also they were called Sammys in deference to Uncle Sam.

Fans of Harold Lloyd will like this.

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.

(1919) A Sammy in Siberia SILENT COMEDY

From the running time of 10 minutes, there is still enough innovative sight gags to keep me entertained that has a small Boshevik army clashing with a dad and his daughter, Olga (Bebe Daniels). To which they manage to take ever the small cabin and at the same time try try to be fresh with Olga who she manages to escape and run away, while her dad is injured on the shoulder. Meanwhile, Sammy Strong (Harold Lloyd) who is supposed to be part of his American army unit, marched on the wrong cue, and conveniently marches straight toward the cabin where the Bolshevik's had taken over. But as soon as he walks toward there Olga's dog, Fidovich chased him up the tree, who manages to take out the small Boshevik army led by (Harry Pollard). There's some great innovative ways of Sammy knocking them out without firing a single gunshot. As well as when they begin chasing him, and he manages to find a way to push them down the snow hill.

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.

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.