Marin malgré lui

A pretty unremarkable Harold Lloyd comedy that finds our scrappy hero unwittingly signing on with the U.S. Navy in order to impress a girl. You can probably guess the physical and sight gags that go along with life on a Navy vessel, and then a large portion of the latter half of the film finds Harold in an unnamed Arabian country single-handedly fighting hordes of sword-wielding goons in order to rescue his fair love, who's been kidnapped by a wealthy sultan. There isn't a whole lot to remember about this film -- I had to look it up just to remind myself of what the plot was about -- but Harold Lloyd fans know that even his lesser films provide a good deal of entertainment.

Grade: B

A brash millionaire, Harold Lloyd, impulsively joins the Navy to prove his worth to his girlfriend's rich father in this pleasant if unspectacular comedy. "Sailor Made Man" was Harold Lloyd's first feature comedy, which, according to reports, was originally conceived as a short film which grew increasingly longer. That evolution can be detected in the rather simple plot and lack of sophistication in regard to character development. In this film, Lloyd goes from being an insufferably selfish jerk to a somewhat normal sailor in about the length of one title card. Still, there are sufficient laughs, and a certain innocence to the romance that can't help but bring a smile, even if the film isn't as rich and assured as some of the features that followed. Not the best place to start for someone unfamiliar with Harold Lloyd, but a definite for fans.

At 46 minutes, it is hard to consider this a feature film, but apparently the distributors did and it launched Lloyd's career as a feature film star. It was released ten months after Chaplin released "The Kid," his first feature. However, both of these films were seven years after Marie Dressler, Charlie Chaplin and Mabel Normand's "Tillie's Punctured Romance," which was the first comedy feature, albeit not a very good one.

The movie is in three parts with millionaire Harold lazily announcing he is going to marry Mildred Davis in the first part. Her father demands he get a job and so he joins the Navy. The second part takes place at sea with Harold becoming friends with tough sailor Noah Young. The third part takes place in an Arabian Nights like far Eastern land, where Mildred is vacationing and Harold's ship coincidentally lands.

The first two parts are competent and amusing, but nothing special. It is the last part, where the film leaves reality that the film starts to really surprise and glow, as it foreshadows Douglas Fairbanks "Thief of Bagdad" (1924).

Everything here is well done. It is only in comparison to some of Lloyd's more brilliant sequences that the film suffers. Noah Young is excellent as the Navy tough guy who becomes Lloyd's loyal sidekick.

This film is more for Lloyd and silent film fans. As noted by another reviewer, it doesn't have the brilliant sequences that would make newbies embrace Lloyd as a genius or fall in love with silent film art.

While this film isn't really as long as most feature films, it is longer than a short and really falls in between the two types of films in length.

This film was remade three years later as WHY WORRY? though there were some changes made in the plot--enough that I recommend you see both. However the overall themes and plot elements are interchangeable. In both he's a rich guy who needs to grow up and be more industrious, and in both he ultimately rescues his lady while in a foreign land. In WHY WORRY? the setting was a revolution on a South American island and in this film it was a Muslim nation and its leader who kidnaps the lady to put her in his harem.

The general direction of the plot is pure Lloyd formula--wimpy guy meets girl and somehow rises to the occasion to fight for and win her. This is nicely made but not exactly different from many of his other films in this sense. It's worth seeing, but other films such as THE FRESHMAN, GIRL SHY and SPEEDY are better Lloyd vehicles.

This is one of many funny and entertaining Harold Lloyd comedies that have been somewhat overshadowed by his better-known masterpieces. Certainly, "A Sailor-Made Man" is not on the level of "Safety Last" or "Speedy" or a few others, but it's an enjoyable feature in its own right, with some good material.

The story has a setup that will be familiar to Lloyd fans, with Harold as one of many suitors for the hand of a society girl played by Mildred Davis. Lloyd's character ends up in the Navy, where he meets up with a roughneck played in entertaining fashion by Noah Young. There are some sequences of slapstick aboard ship, and then the main story resumes when Lloyd meets up again with Davis in an exotic port of call.

There are some interesting settings with plenty of good individual gag ideas, and there are a couple of very good sequences. There's a street fight scene, with Lloyd and Young taking on a gang of toughs, that has some clever touches, plus a fun chase sequence in a harem. It doesn't have any of the terrific set pieces that you find in Lloyd's best movies, but it has more than enough to make it entertaining and enjoyable.