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8 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
Young Lloyd Still In The Learning Stage, 14 July 2006
Author: ccthemovieman-1 from United States

I rarely mention what other reviewers say but since there are only a half dozen reviews of this Harold Lloyd Short, I read them all and would pretty much agree with the comments about it being "uneven" and Lloyd's drunk routine not up to his 'character,' a persona he had acquired by the mid to late '20s, I admit, though, he and actor Ray Brooks team up to do a few funny gags as the two drunks stagger their way around town. It's obvious Lloyd is talented, but was still learning what roles were going to work best for him down the road.

There are some other clever sight gags in here (a man tying himself up in post, Lloyd pretending to be his first patients as a doctor, etc.) but overall this isn't really much until the final five minutes when Harold goes into his walking-on- the-ledge of a building routine. It's pretty amazing stuff. The romantic ending with the quickest wedding 'ceremony' in history is totally goofy but fun to watch.

To be perfectly honest, I was expecting more. This isn't one of Lloyd's films I sit through often, even if it is short.

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5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Out On A Ledge With Mr. Lloyd, 23 August 2003
10/10
Author: Ron Oliver (revilorest@juno.com) from Forest Ranch, CA

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.

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4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
HIGH AND DIZZY (Hal Roach, 1920) ***, 21 December 2006
7/10
Author: MARIO GAUCI (marrod@melita.com) from Naxxar, Malta

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!

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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Harold and a beautiful sleepwalker, 30 March 2008
Author: Petri Pelkonen (petri_pelkonen@hotmail.com) from Finland

In this silent short Harold Lloyd plays a young doctor who has lack of patients.Then a father (Wallace Howe) brings her daughter (Mildred Davis) to the doctor.She has a problem with sleepwalking.The doctor pays too much attention to the daughter so the father takes them away.Harold's doctor friend (Roy Brooks) asks him to join in a drinking binge so they both get very, very drunk.Soon Harold finds himself at the same hotel as the girl is.And yes, she starts sleepwalking.High and Dizzy (1920) is directed by Hal Roach.The young Harold Lloyd gets to show his comical talent.He and Mildred Davis work great together.No wonder they got married three years later.They click in a way only a future married couple would.This movie is 26 minutes of pure fun.I found myself laughing to Mr. Lloyd's comedy more than once.

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Somewhat Uneven Overall, But the Last Several Minutes Are Excellent, 30 September 2005
Author: Snow Leopard from Ohio

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.

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
High and Dizzy is a wonderfully funny primer for Harold Lloyd's later Safety Last!, 31 July 2007
9/10
Author: tavm from Baton Rouge, La.

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

High and Dizzy is the second Harold Lloyd short I saw on tape that I recorded from AMC in 1995 when they did the Third Film Preservation Festival when the subject was comedy (The first was Get Out and Get Under). Like the previous one, this was introduced by his granddaughter Suzanne Lloyd Hayes and had music provided by Vince Giordano and his Nighthawks Orchestra. This was another hilarious comedy produced and directed by the legendary Hal Roach in which Mr. Lloyd plays a newbie doctor who's so desperate for business than when a father and young adult daughter (Harold's eventually wife Mildred Davis) arrive, he passes himself off as several patients in order to make them think that he's a very busy man! Turns out the daughter has a sleepwalking problem but since Harold mistakenly thought the father was the patient, they leave. From there, Lloyd comes to a colleague who's preparing some alcohol (this being during Prohibition) as they get drunk and wander the streets. They then go to the hotel where the daughter is staying and where all havoc is caused with the climax being on a ledge where Ms. Davis is sleepwalking and Mr. Lloyd, still drunk, blindly follows her and gets stuck when she closes the window before he can get back in! Thus was born an idea that would result in a more spectacular sequence in the later classic Lloyd feature, Safety Last! This is another highly essential viewing for those who love silent movie comedy especially those of Mr. Lloyd.

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2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
a perfect introduction to Harold Lloyd's brand of comedy, 9 January 2005
9/10
Author: django-1 from south Texas USA

I watched and taped all of TCM's tribute to Harold Lloyd last year, and have recently been working my way through the last few items I taped but hadn't watched. Wanting to turn my girlfriend on to Lloyd, I asked her to watch this short, made after he had established his "glasses character" but before he made the move to longer, feature-length films. HIGH AND DIZZY is the perfect introduction to Harold Lloyd's brand of comedy. As a doctor with few patients (he has cobwebs on his office phone), Lloyd shows great personal charm and the gags are brilliantly devised to move fast yet work a routine in every possible way before moving on from it. For instance, one scene where Lloyd helps his friend (they are both inebriated) put on a coat, and there is a telephone pole between the man's back and his coat, occurs naturally in the plot sequence, is milked every possible way for about thirty or forty seconds, and then leads to another ridiculous situation. The whole film is that well-constructed. Lloyd's great physical skills are in evidence throughout. Of course, there has to be a "danger" element in a Lloyd film, so here he (and his sleepwalking female patient) are put on a ledge. A drunken man AND a sleepwalker on a ledge about twenty stories high! Now THAT is a brilliant set-up for comedy. The clarity of the copy of the film provided to TCM by the Lloyd estate is sparkling, and Robert Israel's musical score, which subtly works sound effects (pratfalls, ringing telephones) into the musical compositions, helps to move the film along and also helps people not used to watching silent films to appreciate what is happening. It's sometimes hard to get an average person to watch a feature-length silent film, so HIGH AND DIZZY might be the perfect short to show someone as an example of Harold Lloyd's dazzling comedy genius. I heard a rumor that SAFETY LAST may be shown theatrically in 2005--let's hope that's true. Imagine how wonderful it will be to see Harold Lloyd's most famous "thrill comedy" on the big screen!

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0 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
No Need for a Plot..., 18 January 2010
Author: JoeytheBrit from www.moviemoviesite.com

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…

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0 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Very Good Lloyd, 28 February 2008
Author: Michael_Elliott from Louisville, KY

High and Dizzy (1920)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Wonderful Hal Roach short has Harold Lloyd getting drunk and then having to save his sleepwalking love by climbing a tall building. I must say Lloyd isn't very good at playing a drunk because it was easy to see him "acting" but the situations he gets himself into were downright hilarious and rank as some of the best laughs I've seen from him. The highlights are certainly at the start when Lloyd tries to pretend he has more clients than he really does and the "coat around the pole" scene.

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1 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
On the Roof, 19 June 2009
Author: tedg (tedg@FilmsFolded.com) from Virginia Beach

I recently saw "Hangover," and wondered why we find intoxication so universally funny. Not expecting much of an answer from anywhere, I came to this. The gimmick here is that our hero gets drunk and then follows a sleepwalking girl (who Harold later marries!).

The whole movie is a setup for them wandering out on one of those ledges that seems to only exist in movies: incredibly high, just narrow enough to walk on and accessible from double hung windows. Now I have every reason to believe that they really did perform this dangerous stunt — and it is only slightly less impressive that they were only pretending to be oblivious. Many people watching this would know that Harold blew half his hand off in a previous stunt that went wrong.

And yet, it depends on that drunk routine. It didn't seem funny, nor can I see how it ever would have, though I know it was considered hilarious. But then this was made during prohibition, roughly equal to the situation today with roofers.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

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