Among Those Present

Coat-room checker O'Reilly becomes part of high society.That's because Mrs. O'Brien wants to be a member of the society and she hosts a fox hunt.She wants to invite Lord Abernathy and she mentions this to the society pilot.But this woman and her confederate have a scheme in mind so they turn this young man into the lord.Among Those Present (1921) is a Harold Lloyd three-reeler.It's directed by Fred C. Newmeyer and the writers are Hal Roach and Sam Taylor.Lloyd is as funny as always in the lead.The lovely Mildred Davis plays Miss O'Brien.James T. Kelley is her father while Aggie Herring portrays the mother.Vera White plays Society Pilot and William Gillespie is Hard-Boiled Party.There are plenty of hilarious moments in this short.One funny sequence is when Harold lies about his hunting experiences.Or when he rides Dynamite.That's a bad-tempered horse.And it's a riot when Harold loses his pants.Lloyd has done it again!

Mrs. O'Brien is desperate to have great European hunter Lord Abernathy for her high society party and a fox hunt. Her husband and her daughter are more interested in the simple life. The Society Pilot hires coat check boy O'Reilly (Harold Lloyd) to play the part of Abernathy.

This doesn't have the big stunt comedy of Lloyd's later full length hits. It's a short at around 35 minutes. He has some fun regaling in his imaginary exploits. There are some good slapstick. It's short which doesn't wear out its welcome. It's not terribly deep. Lloyd is honing his comedic skills. It's perfectly fine for a silent era comedy.

This Harold Lloyd comedy has a good combination of slapstick and satire. It also features Lloyd experimenting with Chaplin-style material, as his character impersonates an English lord as part of a parody on the idle rich. On the production end, Fred C. Newmeyer, Hal Roach, and Sam Taylor put together a good story with plenty of laughs and a good pace.

After the other main characters have been introduced, Lloyd's character makes a clever entrance. He plays the kind of eager-to-succeed young man that he later went on to portray in some of his finest full-length movies, and this character is brought into the world of a family run by an equally ambitious matriarch. There is nothing subtle about the characters, and the amusing title cards also add some extra sarcasm to the portrayal of the upper classes.

Although this is the kind of setup that Chaplin was particularly known for, Lloyd and company give it a different feel that works well. The story moves smoothly from one zany situation to the next, and there is a good combination of comedy material, with sight gags blended together with the slapstick and with Lloyd's occasional feats of athleticism. It makes for an enjoyable movie that gives Lloyd plenty of material to work with.

This isn't one of Harold Lloyd's better films, it has to be said. He was at his best when delivering physical thrills and humour at breakneck speed, but there's precious little of it here. That's not to say Lloyd's humour couldn't be as effective when it was delivered at a more low-key level, but he needed to mix it up a little with his more dangerous stunts in order to get the cocktail right. Here he plays a bell boy who dreams of being a playboy, and gets the opportunity when he's offered the chance to pose as a wealthy aristocrat at a swanky social gathering. Unknown to Harold, the guy and his girlfriend who invited him are planning to scam the hostess out of her millions. The woman just happens to be the mother of Mildred Davis – an ever-present fixture in Lloyd's movies in those days – so naturally everything turns out alright in the end.

The second half of the film sees Harold losing his pants as he encounters a small zoo-load of animals: Skunks, snakes, bulls, goats, geese and dogs all try to take a bite out of our hero, and it's this part of the film that delivers the bulk of the laughs and prevents the film from being a complete flop.

Newly wealthy James T. Kelly and daughter Mildred Davis may prefer the simpler things, but wife Aggie Herring is trying to cut a swath in society. So when an English lord can't be inveigled to come to their party, hat-check clerk Harold Lloyd is chosen to imitate him. His fantastic stories about hunting are received with such wide-eyed acceptance, he is also chosen to ride the wildest horse in the stables for the next day's fox hunt.

It's all an effort to marry Miss Davis for the family fortune. We are confident, of course, that Harold will thwart these efforts and marry Miss Davis himself -- they had been married in real life for three months when this film was released. In the meantime, there are plenty of gags to keep the audience very happy.