Dr. Jack

I'm not quite at the level of film geek status, but I have seen a large quantity of movies, old and new, and I'm just now hearing of Harold Lloyd. I'd always heard of Charlie Chaplin as being the man in silent films and no one else. Harold Lloyd deserves an honorable mention at least.

This is the second Harold Lloyd starred film I've watched and in this he plays Dr. Jack, an unconventional doctor who could be considered Patch Adams before there was a Patch Adams (and a lot better too).

Dr. Jack treated various ailments with fun and entertainment--exactly what we'd see the Robin William's character, Patch Adams, do in the self-titled movie. Dr. Jack was summoned by the lawyer (C. Norman Hammond) of the family of The Sick-Little-Well-Girl (Mildred Davis) to possibly cure her. She was being treated by Dr. Ludwig von Saulsbourg (Eric Mayne), a stuffy establishment doctor who was keeping her in bed and shoveling medicine down her throat. The Lawyer saw Dr. Jack's methods and thought he could help The Sick-Little-Well-Girl.

As you could imagine, Dr. Jack was not welcomed by Dr. Ludwig. Dr. Jack was young, unconventional, and smitten with the patient--three things that got under Dr. Ludwig's skin.

Harold hammed it up in this short movie. He was acrobatic enough to execute all kinds of physical comedy feats. Harold Lloyd deserves a lot more recognition.

Dr. Jack (1922)

**** (out of 4)

Dr. Jack (Harold Lloyd) is the nicest doctor in town who gets a kick out of helping people in his own strange ways. His latest client is a woman who seems to be healthy but a mean German doctor is making her appeal ill so he can keep collecting from her rich father. This is certainly the best film I've seen from Lloyd. I wouldn't say any of the jokes are hysterical but all of them are very fast paced and come non-stop. The highlight includes one scene where a girl calls Lloyd because "Mary" is dying but when he shows up "Mary" turns out to be her baby doll. Another highlight is the ending, which is a madcap of fast jokes as Lloyd dresses up as a vampire to show the girl isn't sick.

The Sick-Little-Well-Girl (Mildred Davis) is being treated by Doctor von Saulsbourg who forces her to stay in bed and trapped in her own home. Then he decides to sent her to his private sanitarium. Dr. 'Jack' Jackson (Harold Lloyd) is a simple country doctor who cares for his poor patients whether they are a little girl with a sick dolly or a little boy trying to skip school or an old lady who misses her busy lawyer son. Doctor von Saulsbourg and The Sick-Little-Well-Girl make a stop where they encounter Dr. Jack.

I really like the sweet doctoring from Dr. Jack until they do the accidental kiss. I get the idea of a Sleeping Beauty kiss. It would fit the story much more if she gets so excited that she's the one who kisses him. There is a lot of chasing around the rooms comedy. This is all good fun. I would really make that change with the kiss.

Most of this Harold Lloyd feature consists of enjoyable low-key comedy, but it is capped off with a manic chase finale that is fun to watch. Aside from a handful of somewhat dated details, it holds up pretty well, and it has some good material. In "Doctor Jack", Lloyd gets to play the kind of energetic, well-meaning character that he performed almost effortlessly.

Most of the first half of the movie simply introduces the characters and presents a series of interactions between "Doctor Jack" and various persons in his hometown. It's pleasant and often pretty amusing, since there are a lot of subtle comic touches to go along with the rather broadly-played events. In the second half, the doctor takes on the 'invalid' played by Mildred Davis, and from there things build up towards the finale.

The conference between 'Jack' and the stuffy specialist is crafted nicely, and the climactic chase sequence is entertaining as long as you don't take it too seriously. In fact, by design it seems to get more and more ridiculous as it proceeds, until it is finally resolved in a clever way.

This doesn't have the memorable material or impressive set pieces of Lloyd's most celebrated movies, but it has a lot of amusing moments, and shows skill in a different way, by taking what is essentially one simple situation and using it for as much comedy as possible.

Although admittedly it has a great deal of charm, by Lloyd's high standards Dr Jack could be reckoned as a weak, sentimental and even overloaded comedy. The characters are strictly pasteboard figures: the ever-smiling Dr Jack, all goodhearted (albeit often ingenious and innovative) helpfulness; the one-dimensionally villainous specialist, all thoroughly self-centered pomposity; the heroine, a Sleeping Beauty of repressed energy and vivacity; her dad, a well-and-truly stupid thickhead; and a supporting gallery of minor bumpkins and rustics. And all of them dancing to a frenetic, rather familiar tune (though, as mentioned, it does have its deft moments and clever touches), culminating in a self-chasing climax which clearly out-stays its welcome.

In its favor, however, the movie does provide Mildred Davis with one of her best roles. Miss Davis rarely received a chance to display any histrionic ability. Her supine heroines were mostly purely decorative. Here, however, she has an opportunity to play a character not a cipher, and she rises to the bait magnificently.