Quel phénomène!

Welcome Danger was Harold Lloyd's first talkie, and the transition was not an easy one. Well, easier compared to those of Keaton and Chaplin, but Lloyd's silent pratfalls are poorly paced for a soundie and the film is desperately overlong. This is best reserved for hardcore Lloydites--beginners are advised to check out his mid to late twenties silents before investigating his talkies, of which this is the weakest.

Anyone who's seen `Singin' In The Rain' knows the panic engendered by the arrival of sound in Hollywood. Virtually overnight, the accepted methods and styles of filmmaking had to change to accommodate the new technology, and comedies were perhaps affected most of all. Instead of relying on wild car chases, broad gestures and sight gags, movies now had to include verbal comedy of the sort that wouldn't fit neatly onto title cards, and the dialogue had to be delivered with comic timing, since it was being heard rather than read off the screen. The most remarkable thing about this movie is how easily Harold Lloyd seemed to navigate this conversion to sound. The dialogue is clever, naturalistic, well-delivered and well-recorded, and the music has obviously been scored to support the action, and all this a matter of months after the first appearance of sound technology in Hollywood! The difference in technique is apparent when you compare the broader, overdubbed silent scenes with Clancy the cop and the somewhat more subtle, sound scenes at the police station and with Billie Lee.

As a side note, notice how the character of the Chinese doctor is treated respectfully, and even the black henchman of the Dragon, apparently invulnerable except for his glass shins, isn't the usual stereotype we expect in movies of the period. On the minus side, the movie is overlong and could have done without the opening sequence involving Lloyd and his `disguised' girlfriend. But overall, this is an enjoyable comedy and an interesting record of Hollywood's transition to sound.

This film was started as a silent and finished as a sound film. One would expect, then, to see some classic Lloyd "silent" comedy sequences, but this is a very disappointing and largely unfunny film. Lloyd's hallmark was always fresh, original, well-worked-out visual gags, but the poorly timed shenanigans here often remind one of something below the Three Stooges: the Bowery Boys, maybe. In virtually every other Lloyd film, regardless of whether he was shy, cocky, a success or a bumbler, his character was always inventive, thinking up ingenious solutions to the problems he found himself in. In this film, much of the humor is based on his simple stupidity. There are endless really primitive early action gags: one character gets the bad guys to chase him while the another stands behind a large crate and bats them on the head as they go by; a character takes a swing with a club to hit someone in front of him and accidentally hits someone creeping up behind him; a friend puts his hand on Lloyd's shoulder so he won't get lost in the dark, but when Lloyd gets back into the light the hand on his shoulder is that of a foe. These and other familiar lightweight gags abound, and the Lloyd's imaginative building of original gags is nowhere to be seen. In addition, nearly identical weak gags are sometimes repeated several times in a row. The bumbling around in a chinatown basement just seems interminable.

What happened? Lloyd's films before and after this one are all classics of top-notch comedy. This is a lapse that's unique in Lloyd's career.

While one can admire Harold Lloyd's willingness to plunge into sound films, this effort is a huge letdown after the brilliance of his silent films, culminating in `Speedy.' Many of the gags go on WAY too long, and sound makes much of the slapstick more painful than funny. It may be that sound also contributes to making Lloyd's character extremely annoying, especially in the early reels. If that weren't enough, the dubbing process used in the scenes not reshot for sound is very primitive and distracting. Worth seeing for Lloyd fans, but not too funny.

How many bludgeonings can you have in a movie before it ceases to be funny? My five year old and I might disagree on this, but I think that Harold Lloyd crossed that subtle line in this movie. It started off cute and funny, but quickly became sadistic. Compared to Hot Water and Safety Last, this was a poor comedy; however, compared to the Three Stooges or The Ritz Brothers, it wasn't bad.

Maybe hitting several dozen Chinese immigrants in the head with a club was funnier back then...