Aside from 'The Freshman', which was excellent, I seem to enjoy Lloyd more when he's not playing the whimpy character, so Dr Jack was a welcome change in that regard. A lot of his mannerisms are still the same, but here he is a playing a doctor, who cures patients with emotional therapy, rather than medicine. An old ladies cure is a visit from her son, organised by Jack, while a young boys is false news that the school burnt down and he won't have to attend. The idea seems to be that sick people are mistaking, or faking, their life's miseries for their bodies. No doubt it is true for some in this world, but equally for others it would not be, and for a film high on sentiment, it is fairly cynical stuff, and would set a dangerous precedent if it weren't in the name of comedy. Being somewhat conflicted about the idea then, I wasn't overly fond of the jokes, and there wasn't a huge amount of laughs. That being said, it did pick up in the second half, where he was called to use his 'unusual methods' to cure a pretty woman (Mildred Davis - parodying Mary Pickford's 'Poor Little Rich Girl'). The two fall for each other, which seems to do wonders for Davis, but the father is not happy about it and gives Jack his packing orders. Dressing up in costume, Jack then pretends to be an escaped murderer, to 'prove' to the family that this kind of 'excitement' is exactly what Davis needs to recover. Well, it didn't prove anything to me (you would have to be a pretty light judge to consider that evidence enough of a cure, which is exactly what most of the characters seem to be) but it was somewhat amusing seeing the costumed Jack terrify all the guests, and charming that it was in the name of love (although of course, Davis, like most female leads in silent comedies, was just a token beauty, and without any real character development, it is a fairly skin deep version of love). The switching of costumes between Jack the doctor and the Jack the murderer, to fight with each other and to fool the guests, would be mimicked 4 years later by Charley Chase in 'Mighty Like A Moose'. I saw that film before this one so was already aware of the gag, and in my opinion that film did it slightly better, though as far as I'm aware Lloyd was the first to do it, so kudos for that.
