Haroldo Trepa-Trepa

... his first sound film.

In this comedy from Paramount and director Clyde Bruckman, Harold stars as Harold, a lowly shoe store flunky in Honolulu, Hawaii. Harold sees the beautiful Barbara (Barbara Kent) and falls for her, but when he learns that she's the daughter of the shoe store's owner (Robert McWade), Harold pretends to be a leather-goods magnate in order to impress them. Things get complicated when Harold finds himself on a trans-Pacific cruise ship with Barbara and her family and he has to continue his charade despite being broke and a stowaway! Also featuring Lillian Leighton, Henry Hall, Noah Young, Alec Francis, and Willie Best (as Sleep 'n Eat).

This was Lloyd's most successful sound movie, and it has a lot of good gags. An extended sequence on the cruise ship as Harold tries to destroy every copy of a magazine he can find is a highlight, as is the high-rise finale. Lloyd and company were obviously trying to one-up the clock-dangling antics from his earlier Safety Last, and while repetition renders this not as noteworthy, it's still entertaining. Kent is adorable, and I always enjoy Willie Best regardless of the role.

This was Harold Lloyd's second Talkie but the first one I watched, since WELCOME DANGER (1929) is currently unavailable. It's a typical star vehicle and, in fact, the plot is quite similar to that of SAFETY LAST! (1923) - from the shoe-store background replacing the department store of the earlier film (hence the title) to Lloyd's attempts at impressing his girlfriend by pretending to be a wealthy businessman and, of course, its lengthy climactic shenanigans of our hero dangling from the side of a building.

Still, it's entertaining - and inventive - enough to stand on its own (even if, being so dependent on sight gags, the dialogue scenes feel awkward in comparison); the initial shoe-store segment involves Lloyd falling foul of the boss' wife, while the middle section is set aboard a sailing ship (which Harold contrives to be on along with the boss, his wife - who says she never forgets a face - and his own girl, the boss' secretary and whom Lloyd thinks is actually his daughter!)...but the genuinely hair-raising stuntwork (which, it must be said, sees no obvious repetition of the innumerable gags from the climax of SAFETY LAST!) is what really makes the film - also because it involves a lethargic black janitor (played by Willie Best, appropriately nicknamed "Sleep 'n' Eat") who, I'm afraid, wouldn't pass muster with today's PC-brainwashed audiences (especially when dubbed "Charcoal" by Lloyd himself!) and who clearly results in being more of a hindrance than a help to Harold's singularly hazardous predicament.

This was actually the star's fifth and final 'thrill' picture, which also features regular character actor Arthur Houseman invariably - and somewhat irritatingly - playing a drunkard; as for Lloyd co-star Barbara Kent, she's adequate, having already played his leading lady in WELCOME DANGER (I was also surprised to learn that she was the heroine of Hungarian director Paul Fejos' most renowned Hollywood film, LONESOME [1928], a part-Talkie which I've only managed to catch in snippets on late-night Italian TV: I did record a recent broadcast of it, presumably shown in its entirety - as the film, curiously, still bears no opening credits or any underscoring of any kind!).

I first saw the finale of this film in the compilation, HAROLD LLOYD'S WORLD OF COMEDY, in 1962, in a jam-packed 800-seat theatre. The audience roared and ROARED with laughter and excitement. It was the funniest, most thrilling thing I had ever seen in movies (I was 21) and I never forgot it.

What surprised me when I finally saw the whole of FEET FIRST recently, after seeing nearly all of Lloyd's silents (including SAFETY LAST) in the intervening period, is not only how well the final building-climbing sequence still holds up, but how inventive and funny the entire film is. There's a long sequence of Harold as a shoe salesman that's as hilarious and creative as anything in his silents, and there are just no dull spots at all.

The final long sequence on the side of a building is in NO WAY just a rehash of the SAFETY LAST sequence. I doubt if there's a single gag in it that repeats anything in the earlier film. It's every bit as imaginative and hair-raising as SAFETY LAST, a real tour de force. The bumbling Willie Best is a bothersome racial caricature, certainly, yet in terms of comedy, his "unflappable" casual unconcern is a perfect foil for Lloyd's kinetic, action-filled, dangerous gags, and he has one of the funniest lines in the picture.

Keaton and Laurel & Hardy (in their features) lost creative control of their work in the sound era, Langdon never made a starring-vehicle sound film, and Chaplin didn't make a talking film until 1940. Lloyd's sound films were not so successful at the box office, and a reasonable assumption would be that they, too, lacked whatever mysterious element had made the silent comedians great. In the case of Lloyd, at least as regards to his three pre-Code era films designed for sound, this is dead wrong! FEET FIRST, MOVIE CRAZY, and THE CAT'S PAW are all top-notch comedies (and his three films that came after them aren't bad either).

As with all of Lloyd, this is best seen with an audience, but even on TV it's a funny, funny film.

While he lacks the same name recognition among general audiences as some of his contemporaries, Harold Lloyd was a shining star of the silent era, a comedian handily matching Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin with his funny antics. With stunts and effects aplenty, his pictures earned big laughs with abundant gags and situational humor, not to mention some witty dialogue (imparted through intertitles), fun character dynamics, and even some physical comedy adjoining the lighthearted silliness. Lloyd's first foray into sound films was less successful, however, for reasons that had nothing to do with audio; the writing in 1929's 'Welcome danger' felt too much like a mishmash, stepping away from the man's strengths, and it came off as the least Harold Lloyd of any Harold Lloyd vehicle up to that point. What then of his second sound film, which further reunites Lloyd with returning director Clyde Bruckman, and co-stars including Barbara Kent and Noah Young? For as much as I've loved all of Lloyd's silent works, after this title's immediate predecessor I sat to watch with expectations that had been substantially lowered. The good news is that 'Feet first' is pleasant and charming, and certainly earns some laughs, with no small amount of cleverness. Happily, it's also surely more consistent than the last effort.

The bad news is that the humor in this feature is too often very extra light - albeit also punctuated with instances of a somewhat off-putting mean streak. In a runtime of ninety-some minutes, much of the first third doesn't make much of an impression, and thereafter the writing continues to be highly variable; too many bits feel tired, as if the writers were really stretching and straining to whip up good ideas. This applies equally to the narrative, scene writing, characters, and dialogue: clever at many points, yes, but meager at others, and too often lacking the vitality that would help a moment to really stick and have the desired impact. In the same measure that 'Welcome danger' felt too much unlike a Harold Lloyd movie in its amalgamation of crime, drama, and adventure with the comedy, 'Feet first' feels at times too much like a softer, lesser creation, failing to achieve the same vibrancy as its silent predecessors no matter how boisterous the actors are, or how much they run around. This is enjoyable, but in a way that more tends to more closely resemble a warm, gentle spring breeze, sometimes blowing hotter more like the middle of summer, than an invigorating shot in the arm. Case in point: the picture's biggest stunt, recalling Lloyd's most famous scene in 1923's 'Safety last!', is also the only significant one here.

I do actually like this. It's entertaining, and it's well made, with fine contributions from most everyone on hand, including the cast. The sad fact of the matter is that this flick struggles to capture the imagination in the same way as anything the star made preceding the advent of talkies - 'Why worry?', 'Dr. Jack,' 'Hot water,' and so on. It holds up better than the man's first sound feature, but I only wish that it were more robust, with the same energy and wit that defined the best of Lloyd's oeuvre, for even the last act has a had time matching up despite the obvious kinship. (Please also note a single, casually racist line that hasn't aged well. Lloyd himself accordingly dubbed over that line for a subsequent re-release, which speaks well to him sensibilities, but it's there nonetheless.) While this is worth watching on its own merits, with swell ideas through to the end, I would strongly suggest prioritizing Lloyd's silent offerings. Those are must-see classics; this is something less remarkable to be saved for a lazy day. 'Feet first' deserves your viewership, but ironically, it shouldn't be first.

Harold Lloyd's second talkie, after Welcome Danger (which, if I recall correctly, was only part talkie). It's okay, but a step down from Welcome Danger. As far as I'm concerned, Lloyd's The Milky Way from 1933 is among his best films, so I certainly don't think he lost his talent after the silent era. Feet First comes across as desperate at times, mostly during the final act, which re-creates the climax of Safety Last!, with Lloyd dangling off the side of a skyscraper. In this film, Lloyd is a lowly shoe salesman who is mistaken for a leather baron by his employer, for whose daughter (Barbara Kent, star of Pal Fejos' Lonesome) he has fallen. There are some amusing sketches, but nothing particularly great.