Follie del cinema

In Littleton, Kansas, accident prone Harold Hall (Harold Lloyd) is desperate to be in the movies but is lacking in acting skills. He sends in a photo but accidentally sends in the picture of a heartthrob. The movie studio offers him a screen test. He arrives and causes havoc on set. He befriends actress Margie after a bumbling attempt at fixing her convertible in the rain. He stumbles his way through his screen test. Studio head O'Brien is angered at getting fooled with the wrong photo but Harold mistakenly thinks the screen test went well. He gets involved in the life of movie star Mary Sears.

This is Harold Lloyd in one of his early talkies. He made the transition well and continued his stardom. He has his physical comedy. He makes a sympathetic leading man. I think it could have done better to spend time with Harold and Margie together. There's a bit of romance but I would like more. I love the whole slapstick in the rain and I want more with the pairing. Overall, this has plenty of good physical comedy from Harold Lloyd and his appealing manner makes him a great leading man.

An entertaining little film. I recommend watching it without thinking of the silent film star Harold Lloyd, or measuring his performance to some expectation you may have. Just enjoy a nice little romantic comedy with a beautiful leading lady, some behind the scenes looks at Hollywood sets from the day, and some funny gags. Nothing hysterical, but clever and had me chuckling at times.

Constance Cummings is fantastic in what is practically a dual role here. She plays a Hollywood actress that Lloyd falls for in her Spanish makeup, and befriends in her 'normal life'. Of course, the latter isn't until after he's lost a shoe in the rain, splashed mud all over her, and wrecked the top of her convertible, in a very nice sequence. She takes pity on him, nicknaming him 'Trouble', and is drawn to his unaffected, honest way. That honesty is put to a test, however, when she questions him about his interactions with the 'Spanish actress', knowing full well what he's said and done with her. These scenes where she tests Lloyd's loyalty are excellent, and the dialogue and emotions between the two are highly authentic. There is a certain sweetness to the film, but it's not cloying.

As for gags, the attempts Lloyd's character makes to get into the film industry are amusing, starting with being an extra in a scene practically moments after he's gotten off the train into town (lol), and continuing on to a screen test with 26 takes. The actress in the screen test with him (Mary Doran) is motivated because of a past slight on her sex appeal, but after she says to the director "Then lead me to it, baby! I'll show you flame enough to burn that bird up alive", he proceeds to stumbles all over, and can't manage to even answer the phone in the scene without destroying the set. The scene at the party where Lloyd is inadvertently wearing the magician's coat is probably the funniest, as its contents (eggs, mice, rabbits, etc) are dispensed one by one.

The film is well put together and has some interesting camera angles. I found it interesting that Lloyd had to direct quite a bit of it because credited director Clyde Bruckman was regularly intoxicated. The film isn't the pinnacle of Lloyd's career or the best of the pre-Code comedies you'll find, but it's solid and worth seeing.

MOVIE CRAZY certainly is one of the best Lloyd's Talkies. From the opening gag on there are so many enjoyable moments only Lloyd knows how to provide. The screen test scenes are among the highlights. As always gags are very tightly built. Lloyd also handles the dialogue and timing pretty well; but Constance Cummings portrays a dominating, intelligent female lead that is rare in Lloyd's movies. Only complaint: if the high rise sequence in Feet First is recycled from Safety Last, the fighting-in-the-water scene here certainly looks familiar as well-from The Kid Brother. It's also a bit long and excessive.

... and seems to get blamed for all of them. Sure, he's clumsy, but he isn't the cause of half the bad things that happen to his character.

Lloyd plays Harold Hall, a guy who is "movie crazy" - he wants to be an actor in Hollywood. First unfortunate event - He writes a letter to a movie producer stating his desire to become an actor and has a photograph of himself he plans to mail with the letter. His father looks at the letter and mixes up a photo of a much more handsome fellow with Harold's photo, and the handsome fellow's photo is what gets mailed, unknown to Harold. So when he gets a letter back saying to come to Hollywood for a film test he has no idea what has happened.

Once in Hollywood, there are more mix-ups, the main one being that he doesn't realize that the beautiful Spanish girl he meets on a film set is actually actress Mary Sears (Constance Cummings) in make-up with a fake accent. He can't figure out how Mary knows everything he says to the Spanish girl. The dark side of things is that Mary has an actor boyfriend who has made it clear to Harold that he'd kill Mary before he'd see somebody else have her.

Lloyd was always the optimistic young man of the roaring 20s during the silent era, and by keeping things in the rather make believe land of Hollywood he manages to avoid setting this film in the depths of the Great Depression.

Lloyd was very successful monetarily - a very good businessman. As a result he could afford to outright retire from filmmaking after 1938 and never worry about money. This made his films - and in particular his sound films - become rather obscure and hard to find. Ironically, Buster Keaton stayed much better known because he was bad at the business end of filmmaking and had to keep working.

This film is very funny and I highly recommend it.

Harold Hall is a man who desperately wants to be an actor.Soon he is off to Hollywood.They are expecting somebody who doesn't look anything like Harold, because he accidentally sent a wrong photo.In Hollywood Harold causes lots of trouble and falls in love to an actress named Mary Sears.Movie Crazy is a hilarious comedy from 1932.Harold Lloyd shows that he wasn't the master of silent movies only, he could handle talkies too.He runs from a funny situation to another.Constance Cummings is brilliant as Mary.She does her job just as good as Harold does.This movie made me laugh many times.If a comedy movie does that, then that's a good comedy.