Quel numéro demandez vous?

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.

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.

Typical of many of the better silent slapstick comedies, 'Number, Please?' is a highly entertaining, charming, and, simply put, FUNNY short. The gags are aplenty, and many of them take full creative advantage of the setting and the circumstances of the central characters. This short takes place largely within the realms of an amusement park, and this leads to many rather interesting cinematic moments (ex.: a gag taking place on a roller coaster in which some of the footage was shot on an actual roller coaster while it was moving, the placement of the camera on a carousel for a few shots in another fast paced slapstick sequence). The timing, choreography, etc. are all done near perfectly. It is also worth noting that the ending of the short is surprisingly bleak, as is the entire overall story it tells. It is full on comical slapstick, but at its very core is a theme of heartbreak and failure. However, Harold Lloyd is able to deal w/this heartbreak and failure w/a self deprecating and highly amusing smile.

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.

NUMBER, PLEASE? (1920)

*** (out of four)

Harold Lloyd two-reeler has Lloyd trying to mend a broken heart by going to an amusement part where he meets a lovely young lady but he must compete with her boyfriend. The first reel is wonderfully funny with all sorts of great gags including one where Lloyd is in the last cart of a ride with everyone else's hats hitting him. The second reel loses a lot of its punch but overall this was still a pretty good short that shows off what was to come in Lloyd's career.

Available on DVD through Kino and New Line.