Ma fille est somnambule

Dr. Hale (Harold Lloyd) is a bumbling new doctor out of medical school. Work is rare. A man and his daughter walk into his practice. Hale works hard to pretend to be busy. It's love at first sight for him and the sleepwalking beauty. The father is not impressed and quickly takes his daughter away. Hale ends up getting high and dizzy on his office neighbor's secret stash of moonshine. The two drunks go to the hotel where Hale encounters the sleepwalking girl on the ledge.

This has Lloyd's brand of physical comedy. It has his highrise stunts still at its primitive stage. This Hal Roach short film is a precursor to his masterpieces later on. There is a bit of bite to his character in this one. It's a fun introduction.

Fast-paced fun which, as often with Harold Lloyd, features distinct - and proved - backdrops for his gags: first, the doctor's office (where the star, as a novice M.D., is forced to impersonate his own clients as a ruse to attract genuine ones!); then, the city streets after a drinking binge with his pal (capped by a pre-SAFETY LAST! [1923] scene in which they fall foul of a policeman); next, the hotel lobby where the reception desk and an elevator become the 'targets' of Lloyd's drunken havoc; and, finally, the trademark 'thrill' sequence in which both the tipsy Lloyd and sleep-walking heroine Mildred Davis are seen walking perilously on the ledge of a tall building!

Harold does his balancing act off the side of a building trick in this short, joined this time by wife-to-be Mildred Davis (or her stunt double). I didn't realise he performed this stunt in so many movies – this is the fourth I've seen – but it still leaves you with your heart in your mouth when you see him waving his arms wildly as he's perched on the very edge above a multi-storey fall. No doubt it was largely done with clever camera angles, but it still looks good, especially when Harold's drunken character doesn't realise the danger he's in.

He plays a doctor in this one, and given his propensity for binge drinking and chain-smoking he could have stepped straight out of the pages of a red-top tabloid. He's not the most ethical of doctors either, declaring his undying love for his patient (the aforementioned Davis) within moments of meeting her. For some reason he feels it's important to pretend he has lots of patients and adopts a number of disguises to do so, even though his real patient is already sitting in the waiting room.

After a while the action shifts to his friend's office down the hall. He's a home-brewing enthusiast, and when the corks start popping off the bottles he's got stashed in a filing cabinet, he and Harold decide its best to drink them all rather than let them go to waste. Lloyd makes a pretty funny drunk: not as funny as Chaplin maybe, but then he's not as spiteful either, even though he does do some distinctly un-Lloyd-like things while under the influence. In fact at times he's quite removed from the boyish, straw-hat sporting Lloyd we usually see. There's no real plot to speak of, but, given the strength of the material, Lloyd probably didn't feel he needed one…

A Hal Roach HAROLD LLOYD Comedy Short.

An intoxicated Harold goes HIGH AND DIZZY when he tries to rescue the dangerously sleepwalking girl of his dreams.

This very funny film puts Harold for a few precarious minutes out on a ledge, thereby becoming one of the ‘thrill pictures' for which he is mostly remembered, especially by those who've not seen much of his work. The film was produced not long after the freak accident which destroyed half of his right hand, hence the gloves. Harold's eventual wife, Mildred Davis, plays the lovely Girl here; her longtime chum, Roy Brooks, plays the inebriated bootlegger with whom Harold shares an elaborate extended drunken sequence. Mr. Brooks would later become Harold's personal assistant at Green Acres, the Lloyd estate.

For much of the running time of this Harold Lloyd comedy, the quality of the story and the gags is somewhat uneven, but the last several minutes more than make up for any weaknesses. The whole movie is worth seeing, although for much of the time it alternates some very funny moments with more routine material. Later on, though, everything comes together in a finale that is funny, clever, and exciting.

Lloyd plays an inexperienced young doctor who falls in love with a patient played by Mildred Davis, and who then goes on a drinking binge with a friend played by Roy Brooks. There are some very funny gags in the 'drunk' sequence, and in particular the confrontation with the policeman features some very good timing and slapstick. The drunk act is slightly unusual material for Lloyd, and while most of the same things had already been done by screen comics like Charlie Chaplin and Roscoe Arbuckle who were particularly adept at it, much of it works here.

But it's the climactic sequence at the hotel that really makes "High and Dizzy" worthwhile. It's set up well, and it anticipates the more elaborate, brilliant sequence in "Safety Last". It also ties things together cleverly, and by saving the best for last, it turns a solid slapstick comedy into a very entertaining movie.