I found a fuzzy print of "Going! Going! Gone!" on YouTube. The problem is that it was with French intertitle cards. My French isn't too bad, so I watched it anyway....and frankly, you really don't need to understand French as, like most silent comedies, it's all about action.
Harold Lloyd was a HUGE comedy star in the 1920s. However, he was very, very prolific in the 1910s and appeared in almost 200 films from 1913-1920. However, very few of these were classics. The earlier ones featured Harold in all sorts of mostly supporting roles. A bit later, he developed a character named 'Lonesome Luke' who was generally brash and unfunny. By the late 1910s, he came up with the guy in the glasses persona...and at least superficially looked like the Harold of the 1920s. However, most of these comedies were low on humor and high on car chases and slapstick...enjoyable but hardly the sophisticated and subtle sort of movies he made during his prime period of 1920-1930. "Going! Going! Gone!" is an average sort of film for 1919....worth seeing for die-hard fans but far from his best work. Like most of the films of this period, this one co-starred Snub Pollard and Bebe Daniels.
When the story begins, Snub and Harold are on a bicycle built for two. Two crooks who just robbed the train station see them and trick them out of the bicycle and soon the posse mistakes the pair for the crooks. Sadly, the final portion of the film is missing...something sadly all too common of these early silent movies.
There aren't too many laughs in this one....so my suggestion is instead try one of Harold's later comedies...you'll be glad you did.
