Cast:
Harold Lloyd (Burleigh "Tiger" Sullivan), Adolphe Menjou (Gabby Sloan), Verree Teasdale (Ann Westley), Helen Mack (Mae Sullivan), William Gargan (Speed McFarland), George Barbier (Wilbur Austin), Dorothy Wilson (Polly Pringle), Lionel Stander (Spider Schultz), and Marjorie Gateson (Winthrop Lemoyne) Directed by Leo McCarey (#085 - Duck Soup, #1350 - Love Affair, #1394 - An Affair to Remember)
Review:
It does hurt, in a sense, to reach the near end of the Harold Lloyd run. The Milky Way was the fifth sound movie that he starred in, which if you remember correctly, were not exactly comparable to his silent output in terms of audience appeal. By this point, he wasn't even the producer of his own movies and now he was 43 (to say nothing of the fact that every movie made after 1919 was done with a special glove to hide the fact that he had just eight fingers). The year after this movie was released, Lloyd sold the land of his studio to the Latter-day Saints, and the year after that saw him star in his last sound movie for nearly ten years. With this movie, it was based off Lynn Root & Harry Clork's 1934 play of the same name*, and three screenwriters are credited with this adaptation: Grover Jones, Frank Butler**, and Richard Connell. Evidently the movie was the byproduct of casting shuffles, as apparently it was originally developed in mind with Jack Oakie to star, and somehow Ida Lupino was in talks to play the role ultimately played by Dorothy Wilson before Lupino got sick and bowed out. This was the tenth of thirteen movies that McCarey made in the 1930s, one made in between Ruggles of Red Gap [1935] and Make Way for Tomorrow [1937] (incidentally, McCarey actually was the son of a fight promoter; the USC law school graduate even tried boxing before trying his hand at getting involved with film and went from gagman to director). A handful of cast mates and McCarey got sick during production and apparently it fell to Norman Z. McLeod and Ray McCarey to shoot a few sequences (uncredited). The play has been filmed one time since, with The Kid from Brooklyn (1946), as produced by Samuel Goldwyn with Danny Kaye in the lead role of a musical comedy (Lionel Stander happened to appear in both movies). As you might expect from the old days of trying to corner the market, Goldwyn had purchased the original negative of the 1936 movie, pulled them from circulation and nearly every print in order to destroy them. Of course, he didn't get all of them, and the best version of the movie actually is one that came from a print preserved by Lloyd himself.
It does help to have some zip for a comedy, yes. The last of his sound movies with The Cat's Paw (1934) was relatively successful in having a pairing of Lloyd with an established supporting presence (George Barbier) that wasn't about just bumbling around with middle-ground romance, and even Movie Crazy (1932) had some promise too. The 88-minute runtime for this movie basically leaves the film with two distinct segments: Lloyd doing Lloyd elements (to a point) and the attempts at verbal jabs and occasional visual stuff. The movie does pretty well, for the most part, mostly because it has the composure of confidence for both filmmaker and in cast, mainly because it isn't just bumbling around with misunderstandings (it instead plays on one guy trying to hustle both the media and a fighter) that might be Lloyd's most accomplished movie since oh, probably Speedy (1928). You've got a guy being trained to fight by playing it tune to the waltz and antics with a horse to go with brief interludes in the ring (and a horse, I suppose). I like the distinct difference Lloyd gets to play before and after getting in the ring in terms of heightened confidence. Menjou and Stander makes their moments count with such worthy timing in terms of huckster pride (with the latter having a voice practically made for it) that keeps the movie fresh beyond just looking at Lloyd or the varying moments spent around Teasdale, Mack, or Wilson (who are equally fine). While you might know just what is coming around the corner for a chunk of its tenure, there is still enough interest generated by the energy that is present on screen, such as with its resourcefully quick ending to generate a worthwhile ending. As a whole, Lloyd's one play at the screwball movie with McCarey in tow is a fine one, having enough fun with antics and a game cast to make a worthwhile curiosity worth looking into.
Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.
*It's funny to be semi-reminded of Battling Butler (1926), which dealt with Buster Keaton playing a guy being involved with a deception involving boxing, although that was based on its own play and is clearly distinct from The Milky Way; by coincidence, Chaplin also did a boxing sequence with City Lights (1931). But hey, never hurts to name drop.
**That would future Academy Award-winning writer Frank Butler to go along with future Academy Award winning director/writer McCarey, as Butler's collaboration with Frank Cavett for the screenplay to McCarey's Going My Way [1944] won an Academy Award, although that was a weird year in general, because McCarey's story for the film also wound up getting him an Academy Award for "Best Story" which well, goes to show what awards come and go.
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