Il re degli straccioni

I saw this film at the Silent Movie Theater when I was in Los Angeles last summer. It was my first Lloyd. Three quarters of the film was as funny as any Buster Keaton film I've ever seen, and funnier than any Chaplin. I tend to be more of a smiler than a laugh-out-louder, but the first chase scene in this film gave me abdominal cramps. It brought the house down. I don't think I've ever heard such raucous laughter in a movie theater before. It was a great, great chase scene. And it was a great experience being in a theater packed with people, even little kids, fully enjoying a 75+ year old film.

I've since seen two more Lloyd features, Hot Water and Speedy, but For Heaven's Sake is my favorite so far. If it weren't for a long and kinda unfunny sequence toward the late middle of the film, with Harold herding a pack of drunks, it would probably be my favorite silent comedy, period--my current favorite is Keaton's The Cameraman, incidentally.

The announcer guy at the theater claimed the print of For Heaven's Sake they were screening was the only one in existence. I don't know if it was an original nitrate print or what. I think I remember that it looked fairly pristine. I hope the film makes it to DVD soon, lest something unfortunate happen to the print, especially if they're going to take chances screening it publicly.

This is one of Harold Lloyd's least-known films and, consequently, perhaps his most underrated feature; I was first made aware of this factor by Leonard Maltin's awarding it the full **** rating in his Film Guide and, ever since that time, I've been pining to catch up with it!

Now that I've watched it for myself, I can say that the film is an undoubted classic (certainly among Lloyd's best work) and the only reason that I didn't quite go all the way with my own rating is the fact that, even for its brief 58-minute running-time, the plot line is somewhat thin:

Harold is a millionaire who becomes the unwitting benefactor of a modest mission; believing himself to have been conned into such a position, he determines to put a stop to it - that is, until he meets and falls for pretty missionary's daughter Jobyna Ralston. Then, he resolves to attract customers to the joint - which, considering that the neighborhood is filled with tough guys and gangsters, this will take considerable resource on his part. Nevertheless, he succeeds and the men eventually become fond of him so that, when Lloyd's impending marriage to Ralston is announced in the papers and his rich society-pals decide to 'save' him from such a fate, the gang take action to bring the couple back together again.

While clearly reminiscent of what is perhaps Charlie Chaplin's greatest short, EASY STREET (1917), the film's level of gags and the star's typical ingenuity is extremely high - with only the gangsters' drunken havoc during its last third overstaying its welcome; this section, however, leads to one of Lloyd's most hair-raising stunts - actually inspired by similar scenes in both GET OUT AND GET UNDER (1920) and GIRL SHY (1924) - as a double-decker bus (with atop it the star and his 'flock') races driverless along busy city streets on its way to Harold's wedding. Other hilarious highlights include: the early destruction of two cars owned by our reckless hero - the first happens because of a crate of cat food in the middle of the street, which the black chauffeur mistakes for the real thing and tries to avoid but ends up slamming straight into another car, while the second contrives to run out of gas on a railway track and is summarily scuttled by an oncoming train; as well as another re-used (this time from GRANDMA'S BOY [1922]) but undeniably irresistible routine involving the indigestible 'cakes' which Lloyd is made to eat by his beloved at the mission.

Harold Lloyd in his prime as a multi-millionaire who thinks nothing of buying - and trashing - two cars in one day, and who funds a mission for the poor without realising it. He wants nothing to do with it until he spies the minister's comely daughter (Jobyna Ralston). Some decent jokes, an hilarious chase sequence, and a hair-raising race to the altar on a driverless bus help place this, perhaps lesser-known entry, amongst the comedian's better works.

"For Heaven's Sake" was double-billed with "Grandma's Boy" on Turner Classic Movies' Silent Sunday, 12 July 2015, and it was a glorious pairing.

Harold Lloyd was working with Hal Roach for "GB" and was independent "For Heaven's Sake."

The first was, and was intended to be, more of a character study, as the alleged experts call it, while the second was more of a purely gag-filled romp.

"Sake" also had Lloyd's loveliest -- in my opinion -- co-star in the Tennessee girl, Jobyna Ralston, of South Pittsburg. (Some of her family is still there. I've tried, unsuccessfully, to talk the lifeless chamber of commerce into having a Jobyna Ralston film festival. It's a sad town but in a beautiful part of the country, not too far from Chattanooga. South Pittsburg is the home of the Cornbread Festival, featuring the Lodge iron skillets.)

"For Heaven's Sake" also has some wonderful stunts, with Lloyd's frequent foil Noah Young performing yeoman work, as do several excellent stunt performers.

It is, after all, Harold Lloyd, so you know there will be athletic performances and great sight gags, but the directing is quite an eye-opener, too, with that moving camera referred to in this review's title.

Both these films intrigued and delighted me with the moving camera, visually quite fascinating and very inventive and clever.

There is more story here than some supposed experts and even some reviewers here admit to and, combined with the sight humor, they make this a great movie, one I highly recommend.

Uptown millionaire J. Harold Manners leads a life insulated by his immense wealth until he meets a very pretty young lady working with her father in a Downtown skid row mission.

Comic genius Harold Lloyd had another tremendous success with FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, a silent film very simple of plot but wildly delirious in terms of hilarious detail & inspiration. Harold had the enviable knack of making an audience like him immediately and empathize with his tribulations. They entered into and became a part of his gags, watching them build and grow, until the final explosion of laughter and the immediate start of his next comedic onslaught.

Here, Harold has two of his finest sequences, two very different extended chases which illustrate his visual wizardry and perfect timing. In the first, Harold infuriates a growing crowd of enraged hoodlums, crooks and ne'er-do-wells into chasing him into the mission, so as to please the sweet young lady. In the second, which climaxes the movie, Harold races to his own delayed wedding, through crowded New York streets (actually filmed in Los Angeles), while shepherding five very friendly and extremely intoxicated bums, culminating in a wild ride atop a runaway double-decker bus. Through it all, Harold exhibits his magnificent athletic ability, putting himself in real danger, a self-imposed peril made even more remarkable by the fact that he was missing half of his right hand.

The production values in the film are absolutely first rate, even down to casting the ‘faces,' wistful & careworn, seen in the mission scenes. The logistics involved in filming the action sequences on actual city streets, involving crowds of extras and split-second precision timing for the stunts, is beyond merely impressive. Lloyd, who fathered the idea, put the film through five previews until he was sure he had it perfect.

Jobyna Ralston once again amply fills the role of the girl of Harold's dreams. Diminutive Paul Weigel exudes saintly goodness as her father. Noah Young brings bullish bluster to his role of a tough gangster tamed by Mr. Lloyd.

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