Chop Suey & Co.

This short is sort of a transitional one for Harold Lloyd. While he's no longer playing Lonesome Luke and looks much like his character of the 1920s, he doesn't act like him. Instead, Lloyd's character is pretty much a dull and obnoxious cop. When he's not behaving like a masher towards a young woman he keeps meeting, he is getting into one scrape after another...none of which are funny. And this gets me to the serious problem with "Chop Suey & Company"...there are no laughs...at least when you see it today. Instead, the cop is reassigned to Chinatown and many of these folks run around shooting and hanging out in opium dens--all negative stereotypes of the day for the Chinese immigrants but not funny. Sadly, Lloyd's occasional partner of the day, Snub Pollard, is there also but neither have much of anything to do. This Hal Roach film seems pretty plot less and uninspired and both Lloyd and Pollard have done much better films.

To bring Harold Lloyd into the 1980's he was re-packaged in double bill portions in 'Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy'. This short film was far more accessible in this new format with commentary than it was in its original state because the commentator acted as a bridge to the story.