How can you mend a broken heart? It helps if Harold Lloyd is your doctor. In spite of the heartbreak of my failed novel (and let's not let the pain of it break through the dam), I do come back to Harold because I love him still. And in Dr. Jack, he departs from his usual bumbling youth/spoiled rich kid persona completely, becoming a responsible and admired figure in his community, albeit a very funny one. He carries himself differently as a result - like a professional, always sure of himself - and it's the right call, for a "bumbling doctor" would have been ridiculous and un-funny. He's sexier somehow, because of it all, but it's a little heartbreaking to see what might have been, had he been able to break away from his usual Glass Character persona and spread himself out. But it didn't happen - audiences wanted the shy, awkward youth who somehow gets the girl, or the (more rarely) ridiculously entitled rich kid who finally matures at the end. And gets the girl.
This is just a snippet, but I love it - just a few seconds of magic, and the look that passes between Harold and his ACTUAL wife, Mildred Davis, is beautiful and precious. The way she literally sees his image "in the cards", as if he is her destiny, then flutters her eyelashes at him, is priceless. Though there is lots of physical comedy and madcap gags in this movie, Harold's Dr. Jack remains pretty steady through it all. He would have made a wonderful doctor.
