À la hauteur!

... 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!).

This Harold Lloyd feature provides good low-key comedy, capped off with a lengthy finale that is very much in the style of a throwback to the finale of Lloyd's "Safety Last" and other silent classics. Lloyd has the kind of role that allows him to use most of his range of comic talents, and the story sets up plenty of predicaments for his character to try to wriggle out of.

The story has Lloyd as an ambitious but rather hapless shoe salesman, who tries to pass himself off as someone important in order to impress a young woman. It's familiar territory for Lloyd, but the story adds plenty of good material that makes the character again and again scramble for ways out of a continual series of problems.

The finale has Lloyd's character getting caught on the outside of a tall building, and desperately trying to get to safety. It contains a number of imaginative details and obstacles to add to the suspense and humor. The only drawback is the heavily stereotyped character played by Willie Best, which distracts your attention away from the good comedy material. That's nothing at all against Best, who was a talented comedic actor who simply took the roles that were available to him, and who would have succeeded if he'd been given the chance to do more.

Overall, though, it's a solid comedy, and one that allows Lloyd to do many of the things that made him so popular.

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.

A stock clerk falls FEET FIRST in love with a shoe tycoon's pretty secretary.

Silent comedian Harold Lloyd made his second foray into talking films in this very enjoyable slapstick movie. Consisting in large part of a series of often hilarious sight gags, it proves Lloyd's mastery of the new medium. Quickly learning how to make sound work for him, Harold firmly embraced the technology which ruined the careers of many other stars. He also benefited from using the same writers, directors, gag men & character actors who had made his silent films such a success. Appreciating their skills & loyalty, Lloyd's production company kept these individuals on the payroll even when making only one picture every other year, a routine he would begin starting with FEET FIRST.

Ever generous, Harold took his cast & crew to Hawaii, thus allowing for the filming of some very funny sequences on board the ship at sea. Interestingly, while the opening scenes of the film are presumably set in Honolulu, absolutely nothing is done to create an Hawaiian ambiance with the sets or characters in any way.

The movie's climactic moments involve forcing Harold to dangle from the side of a very tall Los Angeles building. This will invite invariable comparisons with his classic human fly sequence in SAFETY LAST (1923). This is somewhat unfair, as the scenes in FEET FIRST are wonderfully funny and vertiginous all on their own. Even with the assist in the long shots from master stuntman Harvey Parry, there was real danger involved for Lloyd (notice that there's only a couple of seconds of rear projection used and that's during Harold's final fall) who once again gets to display his remarkable athletic agility.

Pretty Barbara Kent plays the object of Harold's affections. Robert McWade is her grumpy boss, with plump Lillian Leighton playing his suspicious wife. Noah Young, a welcome face from Lloyd's silent days, portrays a hapless sailor. Arthur Housman gets to play (what else?) a humorous inebriate and slow-moving Willie Best is marvelously adept in hindering Harold's progress up the side of the building.

Movie mavens will recognize an unbilled James Finlayson, long the nemesis of Laurel & Hardy, as one of the painters on top of the skyscraper.