Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Alfred J. Goulding(“Haunted Spooks”/”All Aboard”/”A Chump at Oxford”) directs with gusto one of the more enjoyable Harold Lloyd two-reel silent slapstick comedies.

The penniless Harold Lloyd is starving when he hooks up on a street curb with the also hungry waif, Peggy Courtwright, and her pet dog. The dog steals money from gamblers playing cards in the street. They learn the money is counterfeit when purchasing bakery items with it. Before arrested a heiress, Mildred Davis, comes out of her crooked lawyer’s office and pays the tab. Meanwhile Snub Pollard, one of her shady relatives, schemes with her crooked lawyer (Gus Leonard) to kidnap her with his hired goons so she doesn’t return by midnight to the lawyer’s office to sign the will to claim her inheritance. The car full of kidnappers bring along Lloyd as a Patsy to be blamed for their crime. But Lloyd instead attempts to rescue her and escapes. In an hilarious scene Lloyd gets the entire police station to go with him to the gang’s hideout by antagonizing them. Before, when he asked a number of street cops to help, they refused to listen to him.

Lloyd’s regular partner Bebe Daniel was recruited for bigger parts and more money by rival studios and was replaced by the teenager Mildred Davis. She was recruited by Lloyd’s friend Hal Roach. It was her first appearance in a Lloyd film, though she acted in other films (the Our Gang films). Four years later, they were married.Their marriage was one of the few Hollywood happy marriages. It only ended because of her death in 1969.

REVIEWED ON 3/14/2015 GRADE: B+

Dennis Schwartz: “Ozus’ World Movie Reviews”

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