Friday, January 20, 2012
Thursday, January 19, 2012
The unknown Harold Lloyd
The sad, sweet romantic: was ever a comedian more melancholy, more aware of the fragile depths of the human heart?
Intensity, asceticism, fierceness: do not mess with this Harold Lloyd.
The Barrymore profile, a reminder of his first ambition: to be a stage actor. And he never stopped looking like a leading man.
So much for the chaste peck we see at the end of most silent screen comedies. This kiss (with Jobyna Ralson, Why Worry?) sets the screen on fire!
Oh, mighty-my. Movie stars, on the town.
This man did nothing by halves. Harold didn't just have "a dog". He had a kennel full of Great Danes the size of small horses.
There is just something about the way he sits in mud. Has a style all its own.
Oh, Bebe! The energy of these two leaps across time.
(And note the gaze: he has what they used to call "bedroom eyes").
Would you trust this man with your girl friend?
Is he sitting in mid-air, on a magic carpet, or in a giant high chair? Even in a Brooks Brothers suit, he's Peter Pan.
Even Cary Grant never wore a tux this well. As they say in Nebraska: he cleaned up real nice.
The emotional climax of The Freshman: some idiot critic once said of Lloyd that he "lacked tenderness". It was one of those wildly inaccurate remarks that sticks like a burr. Whoever he was, I don't think he ever saw a single Harold Lloyd movie, and most definitely not this one.
Harold is never funnier than when committing suicide. Here he's taking poison in one of my personal favorites, Never Weaken; in Haunted Spooks he tries to shoot himself with a water pistol.
(By the way, did anyone ever stop to ask how Harold managed to extract humor out of such a dark subject? It's yet another example of his genius, so quicksilvery that if you blink you might miss it. I do not think his mind was operating at the same velocity as the rest of us.)
Without the white makeup and glasses, Harold was almost unrecognizable. He could go about incognito, and unlike most stars who want to be recognized, he believed it was a benefit to him and afforded him privacy.
I love this picture with Hal Roach: both of them look like youngsters. And that devastating flashbulb grin. But what's that weird halo doing above his head?
This, this, THIS is why women love Harold Lloyd, even now! In spite of all his good intentions he is always getting bruised and battered and humiliated. You want to take him home with you. In fact. . . you do.
No one courted with more delicacy.
Movie stars aren't like the rest of us. That's why they're movie stars.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Harold and Charlie and Doug: oh, my!
For reasons I don't need to explain to you, this is a very famous picture of three incredibly famous men.
From left to right: Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks: Senior, not the Junior many of us came to know later on.
Three gods, just casually basking in the sun, sitting cross-legged, perhaps asked to pose that way by someone who happened to have a camera. Three extremely good-looking middle-aged men whose fame had already peaked: but supernova fame like that does not ever really die. As the love song says, "But after you have gone/There's still some stardust on my sleeve".
But soft! what's this? It's not the same photo! This is an apparent outtake from the same session which I have never seen before.
Take a good look. It's quite different. Harold, probably already bored, has changed position (revealing saddle shoes to die for) and is eyeballing the camera lens, causing it to melt. Charlie is looking up wistfully like some waif, and Fairbanks is cracking up about something that apparently does not particularly amuse the others.
And, oh my heart, here's another one! It's not quite as good technically as the others - Fairbanks' face is in shade and his expression isn't clear, though he appears to be saying something to Charlie. The trellis on the left takes something away from the pristine whites in the shot. Harold looks like a bird (a falcon, maybe?) gathering itself up to take wing, and Chaplin is unusually serious. Though it's hard to tell, it looks like he has no shoes on.
Probably they were all playing golf together, perhaps at Harold's massive Greenacres estate. The sunlight seems to bless them, to fall lightly on their shoulders like some solar mantle of greatness. At the same time, they could be getting ready to play a game of marbles in the grass. Never were there three more childlike men, boy geniuses of the screen whose like we will never see again.
To die for.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Ohhhhh. . . . Canada!
Land of the silver birch
Home of the beaver
Home of the beaver
Where still the mighty moose
Wanders at will
Blue lake and rocky shore
I will return once more
Boom de de boom
boom, boom de de boom boom
Boom de de boom boom, boom.
Boom de de boom boom, boom.
Down in the forest, deep in the
lowlands
My heart cries out for thee, hills of the north
My heart cries out for thee, hills of the north
Boom de de boom boom, boom de de boom boom
Boom de de boom boom, boom
High on a rocky ledge, I ’ll build my
wigwam,
Close to the water’s edge, silent and still
Close to the water’s edge, silent and still
Blue lake and rocky shore, I will return once more
Boom de de boom boom, boom de de boom boom
Boom de de boom boom, boom
Land of the silver birch home of the
beaver
Where still the mighty moose, wanders at will
Where still the mighty moose, wanders at will
Blue lake and
rocky shore, I will return once more
Boom de de boom boom, boom de de boom boom
Boom de de boom boom, boom.
Boom de de boom boom, boom de de boom boom
Boom de de boom boom, boom.
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