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Old 04-25-2018, 07:49 PM   #232
sabotai
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: The Satellite of Love
Movie Crazy (1932)



Directed By: Clyde Bruckman
Written By: Vincent Lawrence
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Constance Cummings, Kenneth Thomson
Length: 98 min.
Genre: Comedy


It has its moments, but not one of Lloyd's better movies.

Lloyd stars as a man who dreams of being in the movies. He sends in a letter along with a headshot (accidentally sent someone else's picture) and gets a reply to come audition in Hollywood.

When he arrives, he immediately gets into trouble as he's grabbed randomly to be an extra in a scene and ends up ruining every take. He meets the love interest of the film by trying to help her get the top of her car up in the rain. That goes horribly, and he's injured in the process. She brings him into her home to help him with his injury, and so begins their on and off romance. The main source of the conflict is that she has a role in a movie, and in full makeup, wig and speaking with an accent, Lloyd doesn't recognize her, so she tests him in various ways. He always fails them.

The end of the movie sees Lloyd fight another actor on the set of a movie (Lloyd is unaware that they are shooting a scene when the fight starts). This actor has also been harassing the love interest and threatening Lloyd throughout the movie. One of the heads of the studio sees the fight and thinks it's part of the shoot. He laughs nonstop and the movie ends with the studio head giving Lloyd a contract.

Some of the gags in the movie were hysterical. Some were not at all. And some could have been, but were ruined with how they were filmed.

For example, in the beginning of the movie, Lloyd gets the letter from Hollywood. In his excitement, he runs into his house and shouts about how he got a reply. He absentmindedly forgot to put the car in park. His father, who is upstairs and drawing a bath, runs downstairs to see what the commotion is about.

A minute later, they hear the car crash and look outside. His father scolds him for being careless and says he doesn't know where he gets it from. Cue water dripping down from the ceiling. Now, we all get the joke. We all know what happened. Just have the father realize what he did and have him run back upstairs.

But that's not what happens. They all look up. A full second or two of them looking up. A full 2 seconds long shot of water coming through the ceiling. A full 2 seconds long shot of the family again. A full 2 seconds long shot of the tub overflowing. WE GET IT. We got the joke 10 seconds ago!

And jumping to the end, the comedic fight scene went on for way too long. It had a few funny moments, but I was ready for the fight to be done a good minute before it finally ended. And in between a bad start to the movie and the way too long fight scene at the end, was a movie that was funny half the time and very much not the other half.

I'll give a shout out to the test screening sequence. That was hilarious and my favorite part of the movie.

My Rating: 5/10
IMDB User Rating: 7.2/10 (1k votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: N/A, 67% of Audience (3.7 / 5 ; 167 votes)
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