From Hand to Mouth

Two people and one dog share the same problem: they have nothing to eat.The penniless man is joined by a waif and her dog.There is a dishonest lawyer working with a gang of criminals trying to swindle an innocent young heiress out of her inheritance.Then this lovely lady rescues Harold and the waif from the hands of the authorities.Maybe Harold could help the girl with the problem she's having.This silent comedy short, From Hand to Mouth (1919), has two directors, Alfred J. Goulding and Hal Roach.Harold Lloyd is truly great as this poor man.Mildred Davis is really amazing as his love interest.Peggy Cartwright is a magnificent child actress.And you gotta love the dog! There's also the great 'Snub' Pollard playing The Kidnapper.What fine moments this movie offers!

A Hal Roach HAROLD LLOYD Comedy Short Subject.

Poor Harold is living FROM HAND TO MOUTH until he meets a very pretty rich heiress who's the target for kidnappers.

There is much to enjoy in this little film which boasts excellent production values, some top notch chase sequences and a typically first rate performance from Harold. His future wife Mildred Davis plays the rich young lady, Snub Pollard is the comically wicked kidnapper & little Peggy Cartwright exudes winsome charm as the spunky waif. Fans will notice that Harold's right hand is intact; this film was made shortly before his famous accident which left him with only half a hand.

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

This Harold Lloyd comedy is both very enjoyable and very thoughtful, and it works especially well considering that it was made during a time in Lloyd's career when he was gradually making a transition in the way that he portrayed his characters on-screen. The story and the characters bear many resemblances to Charlie Chaplin's popular comedies of the same era, but Lloyd and director Alfred Goulding give it a style and tone of its own.

Lloyd plays a penniless drifter who befriends a very young street waif, played with charm by Peggy Courtwright, whose character is accompanied by an equally endearing dog. The three of them are rescued from a scrape with authorities by an heiress played by Mildred Davis, who turns out to have some worries of her own.

After a bit of a slow start, things pick up, and it works very well, combining the different story lines with plenty of slapstick and some very thoughtful moments as well. Most of the themes are familiar ones, but it does a good job with them, and Lloyd succeeds with some material that is rather different from that in most of his movies.

The Boy (Harold Lloyd) has no money for food. Neither does The Waif and her little dog. The Girl (Mildred Davis) is an innocent heiress being robbed of her inheritance without her knowledge. The Boy gets tricked into leading her kidnappers. All he really wants is the food. When she get kidnapped, he sets off to rescue her.

It's the first pairing of Harold Lloyd and his future wife Mildred Davis. The story is simple. Lloyd has plenty of good humor and a few minor stunts. Leading the cops is the comedic highlight. It's a good solid 22 minutes.

"From Hand to Mouth" marks a transition in Harold Lloyd's career, as he was phasing out the Chaplin imitations of his early days and began developing the bespectacled "glass character" that would bring him stardom. This is also Lloyd's first film with Mildred Davis, who became his long-term leading lady and (offscreen) his life-long wife. Snub Pollard and Noah Young, both of whom did excellent support work in many of Lloyd's best films, have good roles here. The film's climax, featuring a race against time, is a prototype for Lloyd's later "thrill" comedies.

In this movie, Lloyd plays a vaguely Chaplinesque drifter who mooches his way along with a little-girl waif (Peggy Cartwright, not very good). When a dog digs up a bankroll and gives it to the penniless Lloyd, he and Peggy rush off to a general store to buy some groceries. Lloyd hands over some cash, and takes possession of the food just as the grocer discovers that the dollars are counterfeit. This surprises Lloyd so much, he drops the food ... which is now ruined, and he has no money to pay for it.

Just as the grocer is threatening to arrest Lloyd, along comes an expensive car with a beautiful woman in it (Mildred Davis), who pays for the groceries. She's an heiress who (conveniently) is just about to claim her inheritance, but only if she can obtain certain documents (the McGuffin papers?) by midnight tonight. Naturally, a rival heir wants to stop her.

Snub Pollard is the leader of a gang of thugs who kidnap Davis, intending to detain her until the midnight deadline passes. Lloyd trails the goons to their hideout, and then tries to enlist the aid of a policeman. But the cop takes one look at Lloyd (who plays a shabby drifter in this film) and ignores him. Lloyd smacks the cop, who draws his nightstick and gives chase. With the cop in pursuit, Lloyd keeps running until he finds another cop ... then smacks him too, and now he's got two cops chasing him while he looks for a third. Lloyd keeps smacking the constables, until finally he's got a whole platoon of policemen chasing him. (This scene is clearly the prototype for the climax of Lloyd's sound film "Professor Beware".) When Lloyd has enough cops chasing him, he leads them back to Snub's hideout for a slam-bang finish. Will midnight strike before Lloyd can rescue Mildred and help her claim her inheritance?

This is not one of Lloyd's best films, but it's an interesting effort and it shows the gestation of his "glass character". The final scenes in the film are supposed to take place just before midnight, but the footage was clearly shot day-for-night and it isn't very convincing. I'll rate this film 4 out of 10.