Now or Never

Dolly is a poor little rich girl ignored by her parents and cared for by her nanny Mary. Mary is going home on vacation and takes along Dolly. She expects to reunite with childhood friend (Harold Lloyd). Meanwhile, he's struggling every which way to get to her. The group meets and boards a train but Mary is surprised to find Dolly's father on the train whom she has not informed about taking Dolly.

This is Harold Lloyd before he becomes the famous Harold Lloyd but he's that character already. There's also a tramp who looks like the famous tramp. Lloyd's entry is a lot of action and hilarious stunts. He's going full out on the big action scenes. Once the gang boards the train, they do get stymied by the interior comedy work. I would say that it's a half step below the great tramp. There is a comparison with Chaplin's The Kid. This one lacks the emotional connection compared to The Kid. It limits its full potential until he gets on top of the train for the grande finale. I can do without the black-face but that's comedy of its time. This is Lloyd growing into one of the greats of his era.

Nothing great in this 3-reel comedy from Harold Lloyd. He would use much of this material later in his career and to better effect. The sets are crude and the storyline choppy. Mildred Davis (the girl) disappears for much of the film, and Anna May Bilson (as the little girl--not a boy as stated in the plot summary here) is not very photogenic. Some good comedy bits, but nothing great. And yes, Mildred Davis would become Lloyd's wife soon after this film was completed.

Being a three-reeler, this Harold Lloyd vehicle commands more attention than his typical short - though it's not quite as rounded as his feature-length films either!

Train-set for a good part of the duration, it provides plenty of gags characteristic to such a situation: being a stowaway with a small girl in tow, Lloyd has to devise several ways in which to avoid detection; there's a lengthy scene in the berths (at one point, Lloyd causes the train to make an emergency stop in the middle of the country-side simply because his spoilt ward wants a glass of milk!); and the star even contrives to find himself on top of the train as it's speeding towards a tunnel.

As with many of his other shorts I've watched, a good enough comedy but these, somehow, aren't as highly regarded as the equivalent work of a Keaton or even Laurel & Hardy!

In the set-up to this movie, Harold has to take care of Anna Mae Bilson on a train, without a ticket. Once that's established, you can sit back and enjoy this well-paced and funny three-reel comedy.

Once he had begun to make two-reel comedies in 1919, Harold would occasionally make a three-reel one. Whether he was experimenting with a better set-up to the funny sections, or Hal Roach and he agreed the three-reel version played better is not clear. His first feature, A SAILOR-MADE MAN started at three reels and just kept going.

Young Miss Bilson appeared in this movie, and the first-shot short in the Our Gang series, it was called OUR GANG and was released third in sequence. She lived to be 89, dying in 2005.

Harold Lloyd and Chaplin were the two top comics at the boxoffice in the early days of silent movies and Lloyd here pulls together a very funny movie that gets him to show his athletic prowess and comic ingenuity. Lloyd shows up to meet a girl he hasn't seen in years but she is the guardian of a girl whom she brings along. There is only two tickets for three and Lloyd and the little girl have to dodge the train conductor while caring for a little child which puts his mental acumen to task. Set-pieces include a popular one of Lloyd riding on top of the train, Lloyd at the bottom of a train as he tails a hobo who stole his money; Lloyd in a bathroom with a very funny scene involving shaving cream etc Emotional resonance is low but laughs are truly aplenty the more I think of it, the more I laugh as I type. That is a high compliment.