Trivia

Both Harold Lloyd and Hal Roach would haul the initial cuts of their films to theaters on the outskirts of Los Angeles for unannounced test screenings. They would gauge the reactions of these audiences to individual scenes and recut the films accordingly. This film was unusual in that it was conceived as a 2-reel short, but the 4-reel (just over 40 minutes) first cut tested so strongly with the audience, they were loathe to cut any of it. By audience default, it accidentally became his first feature-length comedy.

Released on 25 December 1921, with a budget of only about $77,000, it grossed over $485,000 (equivalent to about $9M in 2024). The huge success of this film as a feature led Harold Lloyd to abandon making 2-reel shorts. His next film, Le talisman de Grand-mère (1922), was designed from the start as a 5-reel feature and would be released nine months after this film.

Harold Lloyd married his co-star Mildred Davis on 10 February 1923. They remained married until her death on 18 August 1969. They had three children.

With the release of this film, Harold Lloyd became just the second silent comedian (after Charles Chaplin) to release a feature-length film.

Filmed aboard the U.S.S. Frederick (CA-8), formerly the U.S.S. Maryland (ACR-8), the ship was an armored cruiser, commissioned in 1905. She spent WWI on convoy escort duty in the Atlantic and then took six round trips from Europe to the United States after the war helping to return soldiers. She then helped transport the U.S. Olympic Team to Antwerp, Belgium in 1920. She was then transferred to the Pacific Fleet and mainly used for training. When used for this picture, one can note the ship was in rough shape. In November 1921 a screening of the film was held aboard the ship for the crew of some 600 officers and men - some who were used for bit parts in the picture. The ship was decommissioned in 1922, the year after this film, and was sold for scrap in 1930.