Ask Father

In this Harold Lloyd comedy short, Lloyd plays one of many suitors wooing a rich girl with a very busy father. In order to win her hand, they have to get her father's permission first -- if they can even get an appointment to see him, that is.

This funny film is chock-full of physical pratfalls and sight gags. Lloyd storms the father's office, determined to talk to him at all costs, even if he has to don a suit of armor, impersonate a rampaging suffragette and out smart any number of office booby traps, not the least of which is a movable walk way that sends unwanted visitors sailing out the door.

I loved the ending of this movie too. Let's just say that things aren't always worth the effort it takes to obtain them.

Ask Father (1919)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Before he can marry the woman he loves Harold Lloyd must first ask for her father's permission. The only problem is that her father is the busiest man alive so getting near him will take some time. Here's a very funny one reel that has plenty of laughs throughout. The stuff with the two bouncers, one a midget, is hysterical as is the moving floor in the father's office. The scene where Lloyd climbs up the side of a building is also great.

You can get this film in New Line's Harold Lloyd Collection.

This one-reel Harold Lloyd comedy packs a lot of good gag ideas into its short running time. There is a good variety of slapstick, sight gags, running jokes, and gadgetry, and even a brief version of the 'human fly' routine that Lloyd later made so memorable in "Safety Last". Lloyd, Bebe Daniels, and the rest of the cast all do a good job with the material.

Lloyd plays a young suitor for the hand of a rich and very preoccupied businessman, the kind of person who has a legion of assistants whose purpose is to keep everyone else away from him. Lloyd's ever-hopeful character, determined to see him to ask for his daughter's hand, is helped in his efforts by Daniels, who plays an upbeat office worker amidst all of the drudges. It's impressive how much material they squeezed out of this fairly simple setup. After a somewhat slow start, there are non-stop funny moments the rest of the way.

There are a lot of imaginative gags, and a number of them are also tied together in clever ways. The cushion gag by Daniels's character, the treadmill gadget, and the confrontations with the two tough guys who guard the entrance are all repeated in a variety of different and creative ways. It's enjoyable both for the comedy and for the ingenuity that it reveals.

For those not too familiar with life almost a hundred years ago, the phrase "Ask father," meant you better get the old man's approval if you want to marry his daughter. That was a MUST, and sets up the premise for this Harold Lloyd short. He, along with several other guys, are all after the same woman but must get to the father. Unfortunately, he's a tough business leader who runs an office like a dictatorship and one runs the risk of being thrown out on his rear trying to get in and see him.

That's the gag of the movie, which doesn't really have much spark until the last six minutes when Harold gets inventive in ways to see the boss, such as wearing a suit or armor.

Without giving anything away, I will say this movie might be the ultimate in showing how lightly marriage has always been treated in the films. This is a comedy, however, so nothing to take serious anyway. I did laugh, too, at the end, when we see how much true love meant to Harold (hint: not a whole lot, as it turns out.)

At long last, I've allotted sizeable time (which should take up to the very last day of the year) to check out New Line's massive THE HAROLD LLOYD COMEDY COLLECTION 7-Disc Set!

I started off with this one, which is basically a one-joke short (albeit only 13 minutes in length) - a boy's various attempts to meet "the busiest man in town" in order to ask for his daughter's hand in marriage - which frequently has characters being shoved out of the father's office by his burly underling. Lloyd ultimately fails in his quest, but eventually finds true love with the father's secretary (played by Bebe Daniels). It's an enjoyable star vehicle which, among other things, sees Lloyd in drag; bafflingly, there's no director credit attached to this one!