La Chasse au renard

Poor Neil Doyle who switched off after half the film; he missed the best part of the movie - Lloyd with no trousers. How society has changed since the days when a man with bare legs was enough to send women into a faint (I write as I sit on the beach in just a pair of trunks!).

The scene the lion also comic gold. Was it Woody who reprised this scene with an octopus?

Not one of Lloyd's best but still enough great moments to make it worthwhile (although it does come as a shock when Lloyd's character is given the name O'Reilly at the end!).

Harold Loyd is pretty funny, and a good physical comic. Among Those Present deals with the contrast between high society and the rest of us. It seems to have been a more popular theme during the 1920s than it is now. (Cf., The Great Gatsby.) Not that we don't have our share of contemporary explorations of the same issue, as in Trading Places, but now the contrast seems to be more about wealth and less about "class" in the old fashioned sense.

The first half of Among Those Present has Loyd imitating a British aristocrat, telling ridiculous stories about "the hunt" to an assembly of awed guests at a tony party, and trying to ride a horse that others refer to as a "brute." (The subsequent ride is more imaginative than the similar one in Auntie Mame.) In the second half, Loyd has lost his trousers escaping from a bull through a barbed wire fence but doesn't realize it. This is the most outlandishly amusing part of the film. No matter how Loyd tries to cover up the fact that he is pantsless, the attempt fails. It's like Laurel and Hardy trying to change trousers after their escape from prison. Probably the single funniest moment in the movie is when Loyd, still in his skivvies, finds himself hopping froglike past a couple of dignified ladies on a bench. (I won't explain what led up to this.)

I laughed out loud a few times even though I wasn't in a particularly good mood while watching it. I mean, my brain hadn't been chemically altered or anything. It's quite amusing.

Harold Lloyd three-reeler which finds him as a bellhop who's asked to double for an English lord during a high-society party. Its best moments involve the star's tall tales of his hunting prowess (catching several different types of animals, including wild beasts!) until he's reminded that the lord's particular specialty is supposed to be fox-hunting; one such event ensues, during which Harold not only doesn't catch the fox but actually loses his pants! A subplot involves the maid being in cahoots with one of the guests to take possession of the estate - which our hero naturally thwarts after falling for the daughter of his hosts (played by Mildred Davis). Also, it deals with the necessity for the nouveau riche to adapt themselves to a different type of lifestyle - something which the father (and, to a lesser extent, the daughter) has difficulty in accepting, much to the chagrin of the proud and sophisticated mother; still, it's clear where the film-makers' sympathies lie - the finale sees Harold sitting down alongside Davis' father to eat a plate of good old-fashioned ham and eggs!

This Harold Lloyd comedy has a good combination of slapstick and satire. It also features Lloyd experimenting with Chaplin-style material, as his character impersonates an English lord as part of a parody on the idle rich. On the production end, Fred C. Newmeyer, Hal Roach, and Sam Taylor put together a good story with plenty of laughs and a good pace.

After the other main characters have been introduced, Lloyd's character makes a clever entrance. He plays the kind of eager-to-succeed young man that he later went on to portray in some of his finest full-length movies, and this character is brought into the world of a family run by an equally ambitious matriarch. There is nothing subtle about the characters, and the amusing title cards also add some extra sarcasm to the portrayal of the upper classes.

Although this is the kind of setup that Chaplin was particularly known for, Lloyd and company give it a different feel that works well. The story moves smoothly from one zany situation to the next, and there is a good combination of comedy material, with sight gags blended together with the slapstick and with Lloyd's occasional feats of athleticism. It makes for an enjoyable movie that gives Lloyd plenty of material to work with.

Newly wealthy James T. Kelly and daughter Mildred Davis may prefer the simpler things, but wife Aggie Herring is trying to cut a swath in society. So when an English lord can't be inveigled to come to their party, hat-check clerk Harold Lloyd is chosen to imitate him. His fantastic stories about hunting are received with such wide-eyed acceptance, he is also chosen to ride the wildest horse in the stables for the next day's fox hunt.

It's all an effort to marry Miss Davis for the family fortune. We are confident, of course, that Harold will thwart these efforts and marry Miss Davis himself -- they had been married in real life for three months when this film was released. In the meantime, there are plenty of gags to keep the audience very happy.