A Sammy in Siberia

Here we have Harold Lloyd as an American soldier (Sammy) stationed in Russia during their revolution. The Bolsheviks take over the home of a Russian family and like all villains, they threaten the beautiful girl living there (Bebe Daniels as Olga). Sammy plays the hero, singlehandedly driving the Bolsheviks, who are really cowards, from the premises with some clever fighting and trickery.

Though Sammy is the hero, he is rather buffoonish.

Overall, this short has little to recommend it, compared to Lloyd's best work Still, it offers an unusual setting and premise.

During the Allied invasion of Russia (1918-1922), Harold Lloyd is a hapless American soldier out where east meets far east, to deal with snow, wolves, Bolsheviks, and of course, Bebe Daniels.

This was produced just before Lloyd switched from making one-reel comedies to focus on two reels, and it was clearly time: the pace of gags was too fast to permit more than the barest of plot points, and Lloyd's Glasses character (whom he always called "the boy") needed a bit of time to appear to be normal; this would allow his comic gags to be seen as sharper. Once he had done so, he quickly moved up the ladder.

This film came out right before Harold Lloyd's career accelerated to super-stardom. While his persona is closer to the nice "everyman" he played throughout the twenties (looking like him and acting like him at times), the style of humor is still grounded very much in the slapstick past as Lloyd ultimately resorts to standard punching, kicking and acrobatics to defeat an evil band of Cossacks--later, he might have done SOME of this but would have used him brains more to gain the upper hand.

Historically speaking, the film is also very important. Most people have forgotten about an interesting part of Russian and Western history. After WWI, Allied and Central Power armies briefly occupied parts of Russia during the Revolution and this appears to be the setting for the film. As far as I know, this is the only comedy set in this time and place--something very unusual for the era.

A Harold Lloyd short that's harmless enough but not all that sophisticated. Brr it's cold in Siberia, especially for the guy from California. Haha, look at how silly those (highly stereotypical) Bolsheviks are. Oh, be careful of that dog named Fidovitch. Maybe the best bit is when Harold lays down behind a log and kicks the Russians one by one so that they all tumble down the snowy embankment. And here I was hoping for a Samoyed doggo based on the title.

(1919) A Sammy in Siberia SILENT COMEDY

From the running time of 10 minutes, there is still enough innovative sight gags to keep me entertained that has a small Boshevik army clashing with a dad and his daughter, Olga (Bebe Daniels). To which they manage to take ever the small cabin and at the same time try try to be fresh with Olga who she manages to escape and run away, while her dad is injured on the shoulder. Meanwhile, Sammy Strong (Harold Lloyd) who is supposed to be part of his American army unit, marched on the wrong cue, and conveniently marches straight toward the cabin where the Bolshevik's had taken over. But as soon as he walks toward there Olga's dog, Fidovich chased him up the tree, who manages to take out the small Boshevik army led by (Harry Pollard). There's some great innovative ways of Sammy knocking them out without firing a single gunshot. As well as when they begin chasing him, and he manages to find a way to push them down the snow hill.