My new Facebook cover. OK, it ain't much from here, but it feels like a find to me.
My favorite Harold Lloyd film of all time is a relatively obscure one called Why Worry?
This is the only Lloyd film I know of that ends with a truly passionate kiss. It just goes on and on and is very convincing, making you wonder if the rumours about Harold and his sultry co-star Jobyna Ralston might have been true. Up to now, this is the only photo I have ever been able to find of that memorable clinch.
But today I found this. At first glance it looks like the same picture, but look a little more closely and you'll see that it was taken a few seconds earlier. Jobyna has yet to do the subtle "leg pop" which may in fact have started the fashion. She also hasn't yet hooked her right arm around his neck, but appears to be resisting him (rather feebly). In the next shot her body is subtly closer to his, NOT at a decorous distance which is the usual silent film rule (along with hiding behind a screen). The camera pans away for a second during this sizzling kiss, perhaps for the sake of modesty, then when it returns its gaze, they are STILL KISSING in that same furious way.
Whew!
I haven't been able to find a video clip of this breathtaking scene, and it puzzles me that so few film people even mention this picture, as if it's somehow inferior. To me, it's Lloyd's funniest and most quixotic, with some of the best gags he ever accomplished. But the kiss is what makes is all worthwhile. The clip may not exist. . . but then again, it took me four years to find the first picture, and another two to find the second one!
I won't re-write about this at length because I'm suddenly caught up in a deep edit of The Glass Character, my novel featuring Harold Lloyd, which will be published by Thistledown Press in spring 2014. Believe me when I say, the initial writing of a book represents only about 15% of the work. But here's the link to a long piece I did, quite a long time ago.
And I will keep looking for that video clip.
http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2011/12/harold-lloyd-ive-been-looking-for-this.html
Post-blog note. Just dredged up this gif from the sumptuous romantic dramedy A Room with a View. It sort of portrays the kind of lip-lock these two enacted for the cameras. Come to think of it, the more you look at the photos, the more obvious it is that they were "seeing each other". The body postures, the way he seizes her, the way she melts into him. . .His character has been sort-of asexual up to now (not that we're buying it - he gets palpitations every time he sees her, and not just in his heart), so it's like a jack-in-the-box jumping out. . . in a manner of speaking. God, I wish I were Jobyna. . .right now. . .
Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book
It took me years to write, will you take a look. . .
