Cast:
Harold Lloyd (Harold Hall / Trouble), Constance Cummings (Mary Sears), Kenneth Thomson (Vance), Louise Closser Hale (Mrs Kitterman), Spencer Charters (J.L. O'Brien), Robert McWade (Wesley Kitterman, Producer), Eddie Fetherston (Bill - assistant director), Sydney Jarvis (The Director), Harold Goodwin (Miller), Mary Doran (Margie), DeWitt Jennings (Mr Hall), and Lucy Beaumont (Mrs Hall) Directed by Clyde Bruckman (#908 - The General, #1304 - Welcome Danger, #1621 - Feet First) and Harold Lloyd.
Review:
I will admit that there it has been slow road to cover the talkie era of Harold Lloyd, who certainly deserves to be remembered for his contributions to comedy. He made the transition to sound at the age of 36 after countless silent comedies two-fold: Speedy was initially released as a silent feature in April of 1928 before a version that added a few sound sequences came out in December. The following year saw the release of Welcome Danger. Movie Crazy is the third Lloyd talkie film of the seven he would do as star, most of them with him as producer. Clyde Bruckman was recruited to direct Lloyd once again, having directed him for three previous features (which involved the sound version of Speedy, Welcome Danger, and Feet First). He had gone from would-be sportswriter to intertitle writer to gag man for Buster Keaton and later director for various comedy production. However, Bruckman soon fell under the influence of what curtailed his career: alcoholism. As such, it fell to Lloyd to assist in the directing chair (which wasn't too odd, as he had co-directed a few of his own films, such as The Kid Brother, which had four directors), although he did not claim credit. The dialogue and screenplay was done by Vincent Lawrence while the story was done by Agnes Christine Johnston, John Grey, and Felix Adler. Lloyd and Ernie Bushmiller also contributed un-credited work on the script. After Bruckman was relegated to writing for comedy rather than directing it by 1935, he got into the habit of "re-utilizing" certain gags from his older productions for comedy short-subjects that he was doing at Columbia Pictures (such as for The Three Stooges), and one of them is the magician's-coat sequence in Movie Crazy. He would crib the scene for multiple productions and was sued by Lloyd each time for copyright, which Lloyd would win (one might wonder why Lloyd was so easy to sue, but imagine being put in a spot where your director and usual gag-assistant is too drunk to really direct and then he decides years later to crib a scene that originally had you as star). Bruckman committed suicide in 1955 at the age of 60.
Stop if you have heard this before: a well-meaning boy or fumbler type of character tries to make it good in a place that seems to be too much for one too oblivious to know how to play the game. Lloyd may have been the shrewdest in marketing himself for selective appearances in the early sound era, but that does not certainly mean that he fared the best among the silent-to-sound transitioners. The film has been labeled by some as one of Lloyd's best in the sound era, and I suppose we shall see if that is fully true at the end of the road, although truthfully, I am salivating at the prospect seeing Leo McCarey direct him in The Milky Way (1936), just two films after this one. Of course, when compared to Feet First and Welcome Danger, Movie Crazy is practically an ice-cold water bottle on a hot day, so take that for what it is worth with a 98-minute movie built on a handful of sight gags and the classic misunderstandings that I am sure you all know from certain comedies and so on and so forth (such as the aforementioned use of a magician's coat to wreak havoc for a dance). Anyway, let's get to the point: the movie is fine. It definitely seems a bit more reliant on visual gags to go along with the fact that the movie is basically two-fold: the fumbling young man that stumbles through the motions of trying to make something in Hollywood and the fumbling young man that stumbles through his feelings for two totally-not similar looking women. Honestly, I could really do with more stuff involving him bumbling as an "innocent" when it comes to the movie industry rather than when trying to not fumble between "romances", because if he wants me to believe in something for a guy that doesn't exactly have that much time to make me think he is still the picture of innocence (the man was near 40), I would rather have the first part, but I'm sure getting the girl is giving what people want, not more scenes involving him try to not cause the camera to explode when he forgets a line or makes for a terrible extra. Actually, Cummings does do a pretty good job in terms of being as an assertive contrast required to help set the tone of what goes on with a rough industry that demands everything everywhere all at once, and her treating Lloyd as a relief rather than a hinderance makes it a curious experience. Of course, she is also playing a character that Lloyd also falls for and go figure that she has a problem with him falling for the "Mexican character" that she is playing in makeup. Thomson is a decent foil to the proceedings in terms of being someone for Lloyd to counter against when it comes to the most interesting sequence: the fight scene at the end, one told with little dialogue that takes place on a dripping wet ship set that is executed quite well in execution and pacing. As a whole, whether serving as Lloyd's best sound film or not, it is a fairly decent comedy film from its time that will prove just how long he had a grip on an audience that needed a laugh and found him comforting to go along with.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
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