488 - Bumping Into Broadway, United States, 1919. Dir. Hal Roach.

Thursday, May 3, 2018

488 - Bumping Into Broadway, United States, 1919.  Dir. Hal Roach.

This classic Harold Lloyd short film is high-energy, fast-paced, creatively witty, and hilarious.

It features four locations: the apartment building, the theater, the street, and the speakeasy.

Broadway.

Avenue of lights.

In the city that never sleeps.

Where the stars live the good life.  Eat the big steaks.  Drink the big booze.  Where the Flappers expect the royal treatment from the hosts and the maitre d'.  Where money flows like champagne.

But also

Where the undiscovered struggle in flophouses, betting on dreams, looking for a morsel to eat.

Bearcat the Landlady is on the prowl.  Handing out third notices.  Pay the $3.75 you owe or be evicted.  And she has a Bearcat Bouncer man ready to bounce you.  And he does.  He takes the first victim and tosses him up and down like a rag doll, with such ferocity that a WWE performer could not take the punishment.

$3.75 in 1919 is worth $56.72 in 2018.  We suspect you would still take that deal today.  But that is more than these people have.  Or have ever had.  At one time.

Well, The Boy can scrounge up just enough change.

But when he sees his next-door neighbor, The Girl, about to be out on the street, he steps in chivalrously, always the gentleman, and gives his rent money to her.

Now the Bearcat and the Bearcat Bouncer are after him.  Up and down the stairs.  In and out of rooms.  In and out of windows.  Hiding and being discovered.  Farce at its highest.

The Boy is an aspiring writer.  The Girl is a dancer at the theater.

The Boy makes it to the theater to show his script to the Director.  The Director who sits in an office with headshots papering the walls.

If only he could get in.

And if we know Harold Lloyd, then we know The Boy will find a way.

It all comes to a head when The Boy finds himself inside the speakeasy, not understanding where is he.  Not knowing what putting money on Number 13 on the Roulette Wheel even means.  But breaking the house.  And walking away with all the cash just as the police raid the joint.

Here we go.

Up and down the stairs.  In and out the doors.  Hiding and being discovered.

With many a whack on the head.

Here Harold Lloyd hones his madcap mayhem skills for the features he would later make, and this one stands among his finest and funniest.

Now if he could just get that rug to block our view so he can kiss The Girl.