"SMILE, PLEASE!" (Harold Lloyd has a mouse in his pants!)

Harold Lloyd could do a lot with a little (one of the definitions of genius), and completely charm an audience in the space of one minute. His physical comedy had no equal. In this delightful clip, a photographer is trying to get him to hold still as a fly lands on his nose, and a mouse runs up his pants leg. 

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⏲MAN ON THE CLOCK: HAROLD LLOYD vs METROPOLIS

I have wanted to do a comparison of these two for a long time now. Was there a link? Probably not, unless Fritz Lang liked to copy things from Harold Lloyd movies. And yet - there IS something surreal about his man on the clock, a tiny figure struggling to hold on to the huge hands, the hat falling off, the face of the clock alarmingly falling forward - the crowd gasping below. I have never sat through all of Metropolis, as it's just too bloody long and even boring, but I've seen excerpts which really do seem to be prophetic. But prophetic of what? Do I spend my life, my one and only life which grows shorter with every passing day, contemplating Armageddon, the apocalypse, Dystopia? No thanks. I'd rather make YouTube videos and watch birds and collect trolls and fuss with my plants. It's what I do. Crying doom, if doom comes, and so far it hasn't, is a waste of time anyway, as it won't change anything. If it's too late, I might as well make the best of the time I have. 

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💗HAROLD LLOYD Mends a Broken Heart in Dr. Jack (1922)

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.

Harold Lloyd: Facebook profile pics

 

Back in the day, I used to really work at Facebook covers/profile pics (please do not ask me why), and I came out with a new one every week, if not every day. Some of them are pretty nice, and deserve a second go-'round.

Every once in a long time. . .

Below is a nice little unexpected comment on a YouTube video I made several years ago, about Harold Lloyd and my struggles to capture his energy and personality in my novel, The Glass Character. The novel didn`t exactly take off, though I`m comforted to think it`s immortalized in electronic form and won`t be ``pulped`` like my first two published novels. That`s what happens to novels that don`t sell, as they just don`t have shelf space for them. They DID offer to let me buy back some of them at 40 per cent off, which struck me as strange, as they were about to destroy them anyway, so why not just let the author HAVE them, if I paid the postage. But no, that`s not how it works in the publishing world. They lost money on me, so I still had to pony up to rescue my own books from the mush heap. But every once in a very long while, I hear something like this!

Lady Walker
Highlighted reply
5 hours ago
@ferociousgumby Margaret, I got your book at last and read it from cover to cover and I couldn't put it down!!!! It was wonderful it made me feel close to Harold and your own love for him, infused in the narrative shone through. Many fans I'm sure enjoyed this book and I shall read it over and over again. I really love it!!
The only reason that the readership may not have been huge is that love of silent films is a Niche Market. If you had written about a silly pop star or footballer it may have been higher.
All I can say is that you are a great Writer.                                                                                 
@Lady Walker Thank you SO MUCH for this! It`s the most gratifying aspect of publishing a book if one person reads it, loves it and takes the time to tell the author so. Publishing can be a popularity contest, as is everything else these days, but writing it was an act of love, and I am so glad you share that love and appreciate Harold for the brilliant artist and great human being he was.

HAROLD LLOYD: "Gay for the stay"?

One of my favorite, if more baffling, scenes from A Sailor Made Man. Why these guys are dancing with each other like this is a bit of a mystery. Too long at sea, perhaps, or just bored. As usual, Harold ends up in trouble when he ends up with the wrong partner, who tries to throttle him before Harold jabs him in the ass. Great homoerotic fun!

Harold Lloyd: double trouble!

 

Some strange double-decker gifs of Harold I found in one of my files. 

Harold Lloyd: EEK! ACK! OOK! owwwwwww

The many faces of Harold, who does panic better than anyone else in film history. 

AT LAST! Harold Lloyd: Introduction to The Freshman

At long last, I was able to post the clip where Harold refers to his screen alter ego as THE GLASS CHARACTER. Almost everyone else referred to "the glasses character", and no one is sure why Harold didn't, but it made a much more poetic name for my novel about his life and work (not to mention this blog and a Facebook fan page!):

The Glass Character: a celebration of Harold Lloyd

I just noticed several more very positive reviews on Amazon.com (though they didn't appear on Amazon.ca, which is why I never saw them!) So here they are, folks. . . I have to make the most of this, as the book had a very modest release and never reached the silent film devotees I had hoped for (nor was it made into a movie, which really ran me over - but I must rise again!).

The Glass Character by Margaret Gunning Amazon.com paperback edition

The Glass Character by Margaret Gunning Amazon.com Kindle edition

Reviews on Amazon.com

Michelle

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly a gem! 

Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2017
Having become recently absorbed, nay, obsessed by all things Harold Lloyd I found myself drawn into Muriel's world---and what a world! I think one would be hard pressed to find a novel that captured the zeitgeist of the early years of motion pictures. The author did a superb job of balancing the events in Muriel's story with Harold's life. I was hooked and highly recommend it to anyone who likes the silent era of filmmaking, smart storytelling and the delicious Harold Lloyd :-)

Mathew Paust

5.0 out of 5 stars Carpet Ride to Magicland

Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2014

In case the name doesn't ring a bell, he's the guy with the straw hat and Woody Allen glasses, in the suit, dangling from a clock on the side of a building so far above a busy avenue the cars below look like ladybugs on wheels.

Harold Lloyd.

Movie comedian of the silent 1920s. Called himself the "Glass Character" because his trademark glasses were fake. No glass in them. The guy was a nut. Blew one of his hands to Kingdom Come fiddling with what he thought was a stage prop bomb. It was real. Deliberately gave himself powerful electric shocks to get his hair to stand straight up. Did his own stunts--the clock dangle, the shocked hair, pretending to trip and stagger on building ledges up in the sky, netless--a brave, some would say foolhardy, genius. Nut.

Knowing this and being acrophobic, I can't watch his movies anymore. It even scares me to look at the photos. I'll let Margaret Gunning watch the movies and look at the photos, and I'll read her reports. Well, then again, I don't have to anymore. I've read her book, "The Glass Character". It's all in there.

Margaret, poor girl, is in love with Harold Lloyd. It started out as just a fascination with soundless images. Love snuck up and struck her dumb somewhere amid the exhaustive research she was conducting for a book about what was then still just a fascination. Love. Alas. Margaret is happily married and has two lovely daughters and four darling grandchildren, yet is far too young to leap the gap into the day when her beloved Harold held sway with the girls of a baby Hollywood. Fortunately, for her and for us, she's a novelist. She has the skill to weave the magic carpet to carry her backward in time to those days of yore, those Harold heyday days, and set her gently down along the path the love of her dreams must follow should he wish a rebirth in the imaginations and hearts of admirers forevermore. She's woven that carpet. It's large enough to take us with her on that long strange trip. I rode along on a test flight. We made it back, and I'm still agog.

When we stepped off the carpet in la la land I saw that Margaret had changed. No longer the familiar author of two of my favorite novels--"Better than Life", and "Mallory"--she'd become sixteen-year-old Jane Chorney, a virgin and erstwhile soda jerk in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with a terrible crush on movie idol Harold Lloyd. Soon after we landed, Margaret /Jane (and later "Muriel", as you will learn) decided to pack up her meager belongings, cash in her chips (two cents shy of fifty bucks) and head to Hollywood and into the arms of her eternal love. I might have tried to instill sense in her were I anything more than invisible eyes and ears. Unfortunately I had lost my voice and corporeal substance upon alighting in the Santa Fe dust.

So it was off to Hollywood via a wearying, bumpy bus ride, Margaret/Jane/Muriel full of glitzy dreams and innocence, and me hunkered weightless, mute and unseen on her delicate shoulder.

I won't say more. I took no notes and had to avert my gaze any number of times during moments that really were none of my personal concern. The Glass Character is Margaret/Jane/Muriel's story, not mine. What I did see and hear, and learn during our holiday in history is captured with such lucid, insightful poignancy I can't help but wonder if Margaret didn't in fact remain there, dictating her journal to a holographic image of herself in the distant future tapping on a keyboard somewhere in a place called Coquitlam, B.C.

David

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning Star Shines - Great Book

Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2014

I couldn't resist turning page after page when I started reading this novel. It is as fast-paced, frenetic, frantic, as the jumpy quick movements of silent film action. To say this book captures the spirit of the silent film era, of the flashing, double-dealing, over handed and underhanded Hollywood of the 1920s and onward, is a disservice. The reader is drawn right in, involved totally with the heroine of the story. The story is about her, but it is also a thorough portrait of the great film Comedian, Harold Lloyd. He comes to life in these pages, a three dimensional fully rounded fictional character. The good, the bad, the surprising, the ugly. He is totally human and his motives and circumstances are clear.

I've read Gunning's two earlier novels, Better than Life, and Mallory. The Glass Character is far more ambitious in its depth and breadth. It is longer, more expansive than the early works. Gunning has presented her master piece, in this novel. She fully comes of age as a serious, yet entertaining writer, who displays a lovely choice of words and a often refreshing turns of phrase.
If you haven't read Gunning yet, start. If her latest novel doesn't win, or at least get nominated for the top literary prizes, there is no justice.
Don't miss an engrossing, absorbing read. By the way, you'll definitely want to hit YouTube to find full length Lloyd films, outtakes, and documentaries.
Don't leave yourself hanging from the clock hand, get the silent era spirit and enjoy the book!

One person found this helpful

K. J. Janssen

5.0 out of 5 stars THOSE WERE THE GOOD OLD DAYS

Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2014

You're in for a real treat with Margaret Gunning's Novel "The Glass Character"

If you enjoy traveling back to the time when many of our parents frequented silent films as the prime source of entertainment, then you will love to bury your nose in this madcap treatise on the time and personalities of that era.

If the name Harold Lloyd doesn't ring a bell, you will know him intimately by the time you reach the last page.

We know so much about the entertainment industry today, but so little about what went on behind the scenes of the Silent Film era. You will be shocked by Gunning's expose of that wildcap period of our history.

Don't miss this treat from the pen of a very gifted author.

Harold: from black and white to colour!

I'm in a Harold state of mind

This blog was originally set up as a kind of extended ad for my novel, The Glass Character, a fictionalized account of the life and times of Harold Lloyd as seen through the eyes of an obsessed fan. This was done at the request of my publisher, along with a Facebook page which I still update when I feel moved to do so. Over the years, the blog evolved and changed and spread itself out, and continues to, but Harold Lloyd is still at the root of it all.

Having researched the novel for a couple of years, I have thousands of photos, gifs, videos, artwork, a handmade doll (yes!), and other bits and pieces of Lloydiana which I sometimes still feel moved to share. Though the novel did not do well at the box office and was considered a failure by most, writing it was by far the most positive experience of my life as an author. I had had a disastrous mental breakdown in 2005 and was not sure I would even physically survive, let alone write again, let alone write a novel, let alone get it published! Harold, and the four grandchildren who were born over the next four years, literally saved my life, and I'll always be grateful for that.

Harold comes around again in cycles, because whatever happened or didn't happen with the novel, I will always  believe my connection to him is positive, lifeward, even uplifting. I had a spiritual connection to him, and still do. He was not a perfect human being, as he was well-known to be a womanizer with a fierce temper, but he was also big-hearted, exuberant, brilliantly inventive, a constant enthusiast, unquenchable even in the worst adversity, and in all, just a hell of a good influence on me during an extremely dire time.

So I'm once again looking at Harold as a way to muddle through all this mess. I am not in a good place medically now, in constant pain, unable to see a counsellor (booked solid 'til well into September!), and if I have any mental health issues I've been ordered to "just go to Emergency". Since going to Emergency even for a cut on my foot can trigger unbearable panic (just a little quirk of mine!), it's not on. So whatever I'm going through, I'm going through pretty much on my own. Everyone has their trials and tribulations now, and the admonishment to "reach out for help" is now more hollow and hypocritical than ever before.

So. . . here he is, and I'll be digging around in the archives to see what else I can come up with. 

Mid and Maybelline

Blogger's note. Harold Lloyd's wife Mildred Davis was more accomplished than anyone gave her credit for. Harold's personality completely overwhelmed her, pushing her out of the spotlight of recognition she had achieved through years of hard work. Her somewhat reclusive life ended sadly in poor health, struggles with alcohol, and watching her son Harold Jr. commit suicide through drinking and shame over his sexual orientation. In these ads she is considered the epitome of loveliness as her huge expressive eyes encourage young women to try cosmetics that Mildred obviously didn't need.

"After Maybelline's initial advertisement ran in the classifieds of popular magazines in the late 1910's with Mabel Williams’ illustrated image, Tom Lyle began looking for a film star to represent Maybelline. In the early 1920's he contracted beautiful Photoplay stars because of the wide audience they brought into theatres all over the country. One of the most popular actresses of the day was beautiful silent film star Mildred Davis or Mid as Tom Lyle liked to call her. She was a tiny 5 foot, perky-ingenue with monster-big flashing eyes that captivated the audience and drew them in.

Mildred Davis married Harold Lloyd in 1922. Harold Lloyd was a comedian in the ranks of Charlie Chaplin and he'd been looking for a leading lady to replace Bebe Daniels. He cast Davis in his comedy short From Hand to Mouth in 1919. It would be the first of fifteen films they would star in together.

Soon after "From Hand To Mouth," was released Tom Lyle contacted Mildred to discuss her being the next face of Maybelline. Mildred Davis appealed to sweet young ladies who were just beginning to look in the mirror and compare themselves with the beautiful faces on screen. Mildred Davis with her huge made-up larger than life eyes on screen an off silently encouraged young ladies to pick up a Photoplay movie magazine and order their first little red box of Maybelline. Once they tried Maybelline with its tiny black brush and cake of mascara they were hooked and word of mouth spread from one sweet young lady to the next." (From The Story of Maybelline website)

Harold Lloyd: the bare facts

This was an experiment in cropping some of my five-thousand-or-so Harold Lloyd gifs down to their bare essence, then seeing how many I could get onto a page. Quite a few, as it turns out! Think of them as miniatures - tiny silent films, each expressing a few seconds of reality in Harold's amazing life.

Some wonderful Harold Lloyd gifs!

One of my all-time favorite Harold posters: gorgeous!

At home with the unhappy bride

Harold Lloyd and Mildred Davis at HOME 

(transcript of article)

Intimate glimpse of the Lloyds at their new and ornamental home which Harold built especially for Mildred, his bride

by Grace Kingsley

I was dashed up to the house in Annie.

If there is anything I do love, it is being dashed up.

Annie is short for anniversary, She is a new sport model roadster given by Harold Lloyd to his bride, Mildred, three months from the day they were married. They give each other presents every month, and call the day their "anniversary". Next anniversary, Harold is to give Mildred a solid gold vanity case.

"What do you give Harold?" I asked Mildred, after I was inside the house, and everything was explained to me.

"Oh, things I want for the house!" explained Mildred with her airy little laugh.

Mildred is looking lovely these days - a fit gem for that beautiful big house of theirs - built for Mildred especially, and according to the plans she selected. So if the sideboard and the closets aren't just right, she has no one to blame but herself.

It is a very big house for such a little girl - but bright, high, airy, luxurious without being heavy is the way - and so homey, somehow!

If there are any such things as human vibrations, they surely exist in this love nest. You feel just that sort of exhilaration suitable to a honeymoon house, the moment you enter the place.

Mildred welcomed me. Harold is a hard-working husband, and hadn't come home yet.

"Why, Harold gets up at five in the morning, and doesn't get home until six at night!" exclaimed Mildred.

"And are artists really temperamental to live with?" I asked.

Mildred looked awfully earnest - for her.

"Oh, nobody can know how untemperamental and kind and thoughtful Harold is who hasn't lived with him," she answered fervently.

But with all her happiness - Mildred wants to go back to the films.

"I see all the other girls getting ahead," she said, "and I want to, too, I'm getting way behind. Don't you think that if a woman has ever used her brains and her talents, it is hard to give up her work?" she asked wistfully. I agreed with her, even though way down deep in my heart, I felt just a wee bit of sympathy, too, with Harold in his desire that Mildred should be content as a housewife.

"You see, Harold tries to tempt me with boxes of candy," laughed Mildred, "but I've gone on my diet," she added resolutely, "just a lamb chop and a bit of pineapple three times a day. Oh, I can't look a little lamb in the face these days, and I begin to pine the moment I look at a pineapple. I'm taking more slimming baths, too."

"And Harold is going to give his consent to you going into pictures?" I asked.

"Yes! I don't know what happened to Harold. I think somebody must have been talking to him. Maybe it was Douglas Fairbanks. Anyway, Harold came home one day and said he wouldn't stand in my way - that in after years I might blame him if he hadn't given me my chance. 'Dearie,'  he said, 'I don't want you to feel, when we get older, that I have stood in your way.' That was awfully nice of him, wasn't it?"

Still, it would appear that while Harold is quite in sympathy in general with Mildred's film aspirations, when any particular offer comes it is wrong, in one way or another. So I have my suspicions - just suspicions, mind you - that Harold is playing a very canny game - telling Mildred she may return to the screen, but sort of waiting until he can take her to Europe and get her mind off her career.

But goodness knows, I wouldn't crimp his game for anything!

They are going ahead, Harold and Mildred, next April, you know. It is all quite thoroughly settled about that. They are going merely to Europe however, and are reserving Asia and  Africa for a later date.

It was just as Mildred was telling me all about it, that Harold came in after his day's work.

Mildred is still a new enough bride to fling herself into her husband's arms when he comes home at night, and Harold is a (end of page).

BLOGGER'S NOTES.  When I first saw this page from a 1923 magazine story about Harold Lloyd and Mildred Davis, blissfully cohabiting in their new "honeymoon" home, I thought: OK then, can I blow it up? Will this flyspeck type yield anything useful? Meaning: if I enlarged it enough, could I get a transcript? Turned out I could (though it took forever, and I had to guess at some words).

At first it just seemed like the normal Hollywood promotional piece, the two newlyweds settling into their elegant-but-"homey" new home - but then I thought, wait. Mildred was being portrayed as some sort of featherbrained, breathless little girl, with some truly insulting phrases being used to describe her: "Mildred looked awfully earnest - for her." "It is a very big house for such a little girl." "So if the sideboards and closets aren't just right, she has no one to blame but herself." And as for the two "lovebirds", Harold, as it turns out, isn't even home. He gets up for work at 5:00 a.m., then disappears until he comes home at 6:00 p.m. (presumably to have his dinner). In this story he's a no-show, a non-entity, though Mildred refers to him constantly.

While assuring us all that Mildred is perfectly happy in her new home, the writer of the piece reveals something kind of heartbreaking: Mildred says she misses being in films, is afraid she's falling behind, and wants to ask Harold for permission to jump back in. Harold has sneakily appeared to give his consent (which, of course, she needs to do anything at all), all the while planning to whisk her off to Europe to take her mind off the whole thing.

And that's not counting the boxes of candy he plies her with to ruin her actress's figure. But the truly ridiculous line in this phony-baloney puff piece is her "diet" of lamb with pineapple. "Oh, I can't look a little lamb in the face these days, and I begin to pine the moment I look at a pineapple."

OH. . . COME. . . ON.

This is not a real interview. This person, this "Grace Kingsley", has never been anywhere near the huge, pretentious, elegantly excessive sprawl known as Greenacres (and you'll notice Kingsley never even mentions it by name, or gives more than the sketchiest of generic descriptions). 

The only part that seems to ring true is the saddest part: "Don't you think that if a woman has ever used her brains and her talents, it is hard to give up her work?" The interviewer ponders what she has said. "I agreed with her, even though way down deep in my heart, I felt just a wee bit of sympathy, too, with Harold in his desire that Mildred should be content as a housewife."

Should. Content. Housewife. 

Worst of all is that Mildred is given absolutely no credit for the amazing career she built for herself pre-Harold. Her well-established performing talent and luminous camera presence explain why he purposely approached her to be his next leading lady. That sort of stellar opportunity doesn't come along unless you are well prepared for it.

After I had transcribed this, the whole thing began to clang.  "Grace Kingsley" could be anyone, because I do not believe for one minute that he or she ever TALKED to Mildred Davis (whom no one ever called Mildred - she was always Mid or Molly). This person, whom I suspect was male, never took the trouble to drive up that monstrous hill to Greenacres, but just cobbled together bits of information from "sources" such as rumor, hearsay and other magazines. Photos of the couple at Greenacres were ubiquitous. As for Mildred's "contentment" and willingness to give up a brilliant film career, all that was soon to be taken out of her hands. In their innermost circle, it was known that the two "had to get married": Harold had knocked up his co-star and was required to marry her to save face.  Mostly his.

I don't know what to say about all this, and I don't want to say anything at all about the worst of it. Just that the truth seems to be too harsh for fans to take, then as now. Who was there to blow the whistle on Grace Kingsley? He or she was just doing his/her job. For all I know, this person DID go to Greenacres and hear Mildred prattle on about a little lamb. But somehow, the whole thing just seems too contrived to be believable.