A Sailor-Made Man

A Hal Roach HAROLD LLOYD Film.

A conceited young twerp joins the Navy to impress his girl and becomes A SAILOR-MADE MAN.

Big changes were in store for popular silent comic Harold Lloyd with the production of this film. Up until this point he had specialized in short subjects and his distribution agreement with Pathé allowed him to make only two-reelers. But the gags in A SAILOR-MADE MAN grew to be so funny and complicated that Harold kept adding to the picture until the final cut ran a tad over 45 minutes - extremely unusual for comedies in 1921. Pathé took the chance and released it; audiences were delighted, which pleased everyone. Lloyd was to make only feature-length films from that point on.

The film breaks neatly into three parts, with the insufferably insensitive Harold in the first segment infuriating nearly everyone until his comeuppance in a Naval recruiting station. In the middle segment Harold has a series of shipboard adventures mostly dealing with the big boat's bully. Finally, and rather unexpectedly, the plot throws Harold into a wonderful escapade straight out of the Arabian Nights, as he confronts the mad Maharajah of an Oriental kingdom who has kidnapped Harold's girl. There are plenty of fakirs and scimitars and hairbreadth escapes, all punctuated by Harold's splendid athletic exuberance.

Mildred Davis plays Harold's distressed love. Noah Young, who appeared in many of Lloyd's films, is great fun as the thuggish seaman who becomes Harold's best buddy. Dick Sutherland is properly repulsive as the monkey-faced potentate.

Harold loved filming on location and for this film he took his cameras to the Beverly Hills Hotel and the Port of Los Angeles.

Robert Israel has composed an excellent film score which perfectly complements Harold's antics on the screen.

This is Harold Lloyd's first "longer" film, going far longer than what was usual at the time (20-28 minutes per movie) but it moves as fast as movies half the length.

I haven't labeled too many of his films "charming," but that might fit here: charming and funny, of course. It has the usual silent-film wild ending that most feature silent comedies had. Instead of some streets, we have a chase through the Rajah's palace (including a pool) with all kinds of slapstick gags in the mix.

Earlier, rich-boy Harold becomes a common Navy sailor and the scenes on the ship, although not laugh-out-loud comedy, are in that charming category as the big bully seaman winds up being Harold's friend and fan.

All in all, without going into the whole story, it's simply a nice movie: nothing spectacular but definitely worth watching.

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.

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.