Never Weaken

This is comedy crafted from the material of nightmares, and Harold Lloyd (or his stunt double) displays a light-footedness and dexterity that is frankly quite astonishing. When you consider that Lloyd lost a thumb and finger when a supposedly dud prop bomb exploded in his hand just a year before this film was made it just adds to the courage he displays as he wobbles around on the narrow girders of a partially-constructed skyscraper hundreds of feet in the air. For my money, his stunts here far outshine those from Safety Last, the feature Lloyd made a couple of years later, in which he hangs from a clock on the side of a building.

The storyline isn't much to speak of, and the film is really two movies combined as the first half has little bearing on the second. Harold mistakenly believes his beloved (the future Mrs Lloyd, looking a little like Drew Barrymore in some shots) has fallen for another man and unsuccessfully tries to commit extravagant suicide with a gun and a length of string just as a stray girder from the construction project outside his office lifts the chair on which he is sat out of his office and into mid-air. The scenes in which Lloyd is perched on the chair are teeth-grindingly difficult to watch at times, and your laughter is really an hysterical release of tension rather than amusement at what is taking place on screen. I'd love to have seen this in a cinema back in 1921 – the audience reactions must have been something to see, and would have made the viewing experience all the more enjoyable.

I was flipping through the channels last night and noticed a Harold Lloyd marathon on AMC. His granddaughter Suzanne has rereleased many of his films and was on the channel talking about the careers of her grandfather and grandmother (Mildred Davis, "the girl" in this film). The characters are sweet and loving and Harold Lloyd comes off as the lovelorn and innocent boy whose greatest wish is to marry his sweetheart. When he thinks she is in love with another, he plans to kill himself rather than live without her. Attempted suicide has never been so funny. Especially hilarious is the painstaking care he takes in writing the suicide note. My children (ages 5, 10, and 13) were so amused by Lloyd's antics that I was amazed. They never thought that silent films could be so expressive and funny. I love the fact that this art form is appreciated and shown on television for all to see and fall in love with all over again.

In a city full of skyscrapers a boy and a girl fall in love between window ledges. However their romance seems to be under threat when a lack of patients for her boss's doctor's surgery sees her told she'll be laid off. In order to keep his office hours relationship alive, the boy sets out to drum up some business and thus keep her job.

I've not seen enough Harold Lloyd to say whether or not I'm a massive fan but I have certainly never had any great desire to hunt his films down in the same way as I have with Laurel and Hardy (whom I generally adore). However with BBC4's consistently impressive Silent Clown's series of documentaries, I got a rare opportunity to see one of his shorts as selected by Paul Merton. The overly jaunty new score played over the film was a bit of a pain because although it fitted the action on screen, I didn't think it worked for the period the film came from. Regardless I got into the mild humour of Lloyd drumming up injuries on the streets as the film got going until it reached the high (sorry) point of the skyscraper conclusion. This section is pretty much the whole show as it demonstrates his daredevil sense of humour.

Sure he isn't actually 50 stories above the ground but the stunts are still very impressive let me assure you. His timing is good and although I didn't find this hilarious, he is impressive in how he plays the audience for laughs and gasps at the same time. The support cast all play to form but this is all about Lloyd and, considering I'm not a real fan, I did think he was well worth seeing.

Overall an impressive and amusing silent short film. Not as out and out funny as I would have hoped but the skyscraper scrapes are well worth seeing and make the second part of the film much stronger than the rather genial first half.

Never Weaken came a year after the brilliant Haunted Spooks and touches on some of the same ideas but plays in a very different ways, including featuring an extended sequence of the stunning stunt-work best associated with Lloyd.

Where Keaton had his dour expression and acrobatics and Chaplin had the pathos and funny walk of the tramp Lloyd is best remembered for his effervescence and his stunts. The stunts are never better represented than here which sees a protracted, thrilling and funny scene when Harold finds himself stranded on the beams of a building under construction. One gag in this sequence involving a ladder is as good as they come but the whole sequence is a delight.

It might surprise people that a key theme here involves attempted suicide, something Keaton often tackled, but is less associated with the happy-go-lucky Lloyd, but it was something he visited on multiple occasions. Perfectly demonstrating what a fine line exists between comedy and tragedy this scene here explores the banalities that intrude and the difficulties of going through with such an act that when dwelt on are extremely astute but while watched are hilarious. The suicidal scenes of Haunted Spooks have bigger, and funnier gags and this is one extended scene here instead of a series of vignettes but still inspired as Harold figures out how to do it, dismissing various ways for funny, but oddly real reasons. The sequence is at it's best though when he delays the act because he gets caught up in the triviality of a miss-spelling in his suicide note! Lloyd regular (and later his wife) Mildred Davis again appears as the love interest, though has little to do here compared to some.

The film is intriguingly split into three distinct segments, the slapstick laughs of the first section where Harold is trying to get patients for the doctor Mildred works for so she won't be fired; the smart wit of the suicidal second section; and then the thrilling stunts of the final section. Whichever part of Lloyd's art you like best Never Weaken can offer it to you, however as a whole it does feel a little like 3 10 minute shorts playing one after the other.

Typically the title cards remain the most inspired and beautiful of any US silent comedian.

Well worth catching. If you don't know Lloyd you couldn't get a better introduction to his talents.

The title doesn't make any sense, but otherwise this is a terrific Harold Lloyd short that demonstrates why Lloyd was so beloved.

I watched this shortly after watching another Lloyd short, "Haunted Spooks" (mostly because they come together on the same DVD), and it's very similar in premise to the first half of "Spooks." Lloyd plays a young man who thinks the love of his life is in love with someone else, and he decides to commit suicide. Of course, he's Harold Lloyd, so things don't go as planned, and he instead finds himself dangling above New York city from a construction site. These scenes are real nail biters, as one thing after another threatens to send him plummeting, and Lloyd showcases the dare-devilry that was so common to silent comedy actors from that time.

Grade: A