Number, Please?

This is a very good short comedy, with some good material and a fine job by Harold Lloyd as one of his slightly amoral but still sympathetic characters. Lloyd was as good as anyone was at taking a simple situation and building it up with as much comic material as he could fit into it without going too far. The telephone booth sequence here is a great example, and it is as impressive in its creativity as it is enjoyable to watch. The rest of "Number, Please" also works pretty well, and while there isn't much of a story to speak of, Lloyd is creative enough that you barely notice. Lloyd's style works well in this one, and it's a very entertaining feature.

Just watched this Harold Lloyd short on the DVD "The Cook and Other Treasures". It takes place in an amusement park in Orange Park, California. Plenty of gags involving a girl (Mildred Davis-Lloyd's future wife), rival Roy Brooks (who'd become Lloyd's assistant later on), telephone booths, a dog, a purse, a merry-go-round, and a little black boy who'd later become a member of the original "Our Gang" (Ernie Morrison). Producer/director Hal Roach appears in silhouette early on. Also early on is a gag involving a roller coaster and hats that provides the start of consistent laughs that I give through most of this entertaining short. The scene with the telephone booths and operators mixing up various calls was also one of the most hilarious in the short. I think I've said enough so on that note, I highly recommend Number, Please?

Funny Lloyd short is plenty on laughs as Lloyd goes to great limits to win the heart of a girl. Isn't that the basic plot of all the silent shorts from all the screen comics. There is the girl you have to the get and the laughs come from the approach. Today's comic have women in the movies but they are prizes that are given to the comic, not chased or earned in today's movies, id est the female love interest does not function as the macguffin which is the case in all the good silent comedies. That said, there are cops following Harold as he is acting very suspiciously for he is trying to dispose of a purse that he did not steal. As he tries to do this, making phone calls with a crying child, scenes on a rollercoaster all combine to deliver the laughs and finally, a bitter-sweet ending is the perfect coda to the futilities of the female hunt.

This middling Harold Lloyd short is neatly divided into three sections: concerning romantic rivalry at an amusement park, it starts off with a dog chase (this early part also involving a distorted mirror gag); the mid-section is devoted to the inventive telephone antics which give the film its title; the last part, then, resolves itself into a rather overstretched sequence in which Lloyd, chased by the police, tries to get rid of an incriminating purse.

Still, perhaps the single funniest bit occurs at the very beginning - a succession of title cards categorizing how various lovesick men deal with their predicament.

The Boy (Harold Lloyd) is heartbroken for The Girl (Mildred Davis). She's with The Rival (Roy Brooks) at the seaside carnival. She loses her dog General Pershing. The Boy sets off to find it. OMG SAVE THE DOG! The Merry-o-around is scary as heck. I can't stop thinking about that scene. It ends up being funny, but it starts off as awkwardly scary. I honestly lost track of the story when it actually gets to "Number, Please". I was wondering what is happening with the phone call. The purse is a good gag especially when there is another dog. The dogs are the center of two great gags. They really save the day.