Like the other great silent clowns, Harold Lloyd struggled to adapt to the advent of sound. This early all-talkie effort demonstrates why.
Harold Horne (Lloyd) is a lowly Honolulu shoe-store clerk who aspires to better himself and achieve his share of the American dream, not to mention the attentions of an attractive woman he mistakes for the daughter of Mr. Turner, his boss. But a disastrous experience with the boss's wife forces him to endanger himself at sea and on land in order to get the girl.
It's the classic Harold Lloyd scenario, except this time he must also contend with verbal humor that too often falls flat.
"His face bothers me," says the boss's wife, who recognizes but doesn't remember the clerk who upset her so when she meets him again on a ship bound for California.
"You were born bothered!" her husband replies.
"Oh, really!" she snorts, whereupon the scene ends, in "Feet First's" signature flat manner.
Harold himself is pretty flat, too. He had a good voice, but he was better when he didn't have to use it so much. His delivery here is halting. Instead of crisp movement, he is stuck with dialogue that hobbles him and slows down his comic rhythm and timing.
A scene where he runs around the ship stealing magazines (he has discovered he is featured in the magazine in an ad that reveals his lowly status, at a time when he is trying to pass himself off as a tycoon) has promise. He carries a stack of magazines to the ship's rail to throw them overboard, only for them to blow back on the ship. Before this can happen, though, we hear the wind gusting across the deck, spoiling the surprise.
Similarly, "Feet First's" most remembered sequence, showing Harold climbing the outside of a tall building much like he did in the silent classic "Safety Last," is made less brilliant by the poor man's grunting and cries for help. No doubt he did a lot of grunting in "Safety Last" too, only you couldn't hear him. Here, you are forced to notice the exertion more than you do the gravity-defying grace so impressive in the earlier film.
There are a couple of better Harold bits in this movie. One, when he tries to pull one of those ads he is featured in off the backside of a female passenger, has her spin around and catch him in mid-reach. Taking advantage of an on-board musical performance, Harold goes into a dance without missing a beat, and executes a backward pratfall for good measure.
But such scenes are few and far between in a 90-minute movie that feels twice as long. Harold's efforts to avoid discovery as a stowaway come off as mean and embarrassing rather than funny. Harold was always getting into these scrapes in silent films, but there you weren't required to take his antics as real the way you are here.
There is much criticism of Willie Best's turn as a dopey janitor who tries to help Harold as he's clinging to a building. Best, who went by the moniker "Sleep 'n' Eat," was a black comedian who took roles when he could find them in a socially restrictive time. Harold calls him "Charcoal," which is unfortunate and obscures the fact he gave Best a rare chance to do some comedy in an A-picture. Best's no more dopey than the white sailor "Elmer" (Noah Young) whom Harold tangles with on the ship, but it's still a weight on account of his race, not to mention that dopiness is a lazy form of comedy too often employed here.
Director Clyde Bruckman, like Lloyd, made his name in great silent comedies, notably Buster Keaton's "The General" and the classic Laurel and Hardy short "Putting Pants On Philip." Here he seems as lost as Lloyd reworking silent comic tropes for a less-forgiving medium.
Overall, I found "Feet First" a labored exercise, brightened only by occasional reminders of Lloyd's silent greatness. It's a fascinating showcase of why silent comedy was special, albeit mostly in the form of a negative example.
Harold Horne (Lloyd) is a lowly Honolulu shoe-store clerk who aspires to better himself and achieve his share of the American dream, not to mention the attentions of an attractive woman he mistakes for the daughter of Mr. Turner, his boss. But a disastrous experience with the boss's wife forces him to endanger himself at sea and on land in order to get the girl.
It's the classic Harold Lloyd scenario, except this time he must also contend with verbal humor that too often falls flat.
"His face bothers me," says the boss's wife, who recognizes but doesn't remember the clerk who upset her so when she meets him again on a ship bound for California.
"You were born bothered!" her husband replies.
"Oh, really!" she snorts, whereupon the scene ends, in "Feet First's" signature flat manner.
Harold himself is pretty flat, too. He had a good voice, but he was better when he didn't have to use it so much. His delivery here is halting. Instead of crisp movement, he is stuck with dialogue that hobbles him and slows down his comic rhythm and timing.
A scene where he runs around the ship stealing magazines (he has discovered he is featured in the magazine in an ad that reveals his lowly status, at a time when he is trying to pass himself off as a tycoon) has promise. He carries a stack of magazines to the ship's rail to throw them overboard, only for them to blow back on the ship. Before this can happen, though, we hear the wind gusting across the deck, spoiling the surprise.
Similarly, "Feet First's" most remembered sequence, showing Harold climbing the outside of a tall building much like he did in the silent classic "Safety Last," is made less brilliant by the poor man's grunting and cries for help. No doubt he did a lot of grunting in "Safety Last" too, only you couldn't hear him. Here, you are forced to notice the exertion more than you do the gravity-defying grace so impressive in the earlier film.
There are a couple of better Harold bits in this movie. One, when he tries to pull one of those ads he is featured in off the backside of a female passenger, has her spin around and catch him in mid-reach. Taking advantage of an on-board musical performance, Harold goes into a dance without missing a beat, and executes a backward pratfall for good measure.
But such scenes are few and far between in a 90-minute movie that feels twice as long. Harold's efforts to avoid discovery as a stowaway come off as mean and embarrassing rather than funny. Harold was always getting into these scrapes in silent films, but there you weren't required to take his antics as real the way you are here.
There is much criticism of Willie Best's turn as a dopey janitor who tries to help Harold as he's clinging to a building. Best, who went by the moniker "Sleep 'n' Eat," was a black comedian who took roles when he could find them in a socially restrictive time. Harold calls him "Charcoal," which is unfortunate and obscures the fact he gave Best a rare chance to do some comedy in an A-picture. Best's no more dopey than the white sailor "Elmer" (Noah Young) whom Harold tangles with on the ship, but it's still a weight on account of his race, not to mention that dopiness is a lazy form of comedy too often employed here.
Director Clyde Bruckman, like Lloyd, made his name in great silent comedies, notably Buster Keaton's "The General" and the classic Laurel and Hardy short "Putting Pants On Philip." Here he seems as lost as Lloyd reworking silent comic tropes for a less-forgiving medium.
Overall, I found "Feet First" a labored exercise, brightened only by occasional reminders of Lloyd's silent greatness. It's a fascinating showcase of why silent comedy was special, albeit mostly in the form of a negative example.