Having just watched two of Harold Lloyd's early sound films ("Welcome Danger!" and "Feet First"), I looked into the archives of his other work and found this 1960's compilation of mostly silent masterpieces with brief looks at four of his talkies: "Feet First", "Movie Crazy", "The Milky Way" and "Professor Beware!". Harold Lloyd represented the "every man", the person who would wake up in the morning by falling out of bed, stub his toe as he made his way to his bathroom and had everything else go wrong even before he could get dressed to go on with his day. Here, he is shown struggling with the duties of a newlywed husband, picking up things his new wifey has asked him to bring her on the way home from his day, biting off more than he can chew as he tries to carry way to much and on top of that ends up winning a LIVE turkey in a raffle. He deals with the issues of trying to pay his trolley fair, trying to find a seat where the turkey causes all sorts of other issues, and then deals with all sorts of other obstacles when he finally gets home where the arrival of a new car sends the family of annoying in-laws into chaos. Another segment has him helping out a pretty young lady on a train hide her puppy, not as funny as the sequence with the feathery future Thanksgiving dinner, and another has him in an obvious Spanish jail dealing with a giant of a cellmate who needs to have a bad tooth taken out. It seems like if there was anybody who could be accused of always being in the wrong place at the wrong time, it would be Harold Lloyd. A few brief sequences of some of his truly classic comedy films (most famously "Safety Last") are shown, but more is devoted to the obscure and the few talkies I mention, "Feet First's" famous scaffolding scene influenced by his earlier success dealing with the side of a building as he nearly falls off after grabbing onto a wobbly clock. The narration insists that everything he did was done without any sort of special effects, implying that when he was hanging off of a building, he really was hanging off of a building, and there was no instance where he let go a la Meryl Streep in "Postcards From the Edge" to show that he was simply laying down on a floor based movie screen. To say that Harold Lloyd was ahead of his time is a complete cliche, but his films stand the test of time very well, often with stereotypical views of minorities or abuse towards obnoxious matronly women, but nobody can say that they never laughed at least one moment during those films. There are several silent movie compilations of comedy classics made in the early 1960's that are all nostalgic, and this is one of the best.

I love Harold Lloyd films...and yet I am NOT recommending you watch "Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy". This sounds contradictory, doesn't it? Well, let me explain why I love his films and why I quickly lost interest in this picture.Harold Lloyd, of all the major comedy stars of the 1920s, relied more on stories and his sweet character. Sure, he did a few films, such as "Safety Last", which were very physical. But far more often he made sweet plot-driven films like "The Kid Brother", "Grandma's Boy" and "The Freshman"...movies that didn't rely on pratfalls or stunts but lovable characters and more subtle comedy. Because of this, although you could see clips from some of these wonderful films, without the context all the sweetness and great characters are lost. And so it was as I saw this compendium--the context was missing and most of the clips, on their own, just weren't that funny.I think that non-fans would also be disappointed. They would see the clips and likely think "wow...he's really not that funny" and simply dismiss Harold Lloyd and his genius. Instead, see his films in their entirety and skis this poorly slapped together pile of clips and occasionally annoying narration.

Some of Silent Cinema's funniest moments may be found in HAROLD LLOYD'S WORLD OF COMEDY (1962).Although he had not appeared on screen for many years, comic genius Harold Lloyd had kept ownership of his films, storing them in special vaults at his Beverly Hills mansion. He loved sharing the gift of laughter from his old movies whenever he could. Student audiences were a favorite, as were the young patients in Shriner hospitals for children. It was here that he had experimented showing compilations of his favorite cinematic moments culled from his old classics.It is important to remember that Harold's original films were unavailable for viewing by the general public for decades. He did not want them to be shown on commercial television where they were likely to be broken up for advertisements and shown at incorrect projection speeds. He was wise, especially when one considers what TV perpetrated upon the feature films and shorts of Laurel & Hardy and the Our Gang kids. In the early 1960's, 35 years after his Silent Glory Days, he produced and released this look back.Generous selections from both silent and talkie films are shown (including, oddly, a couple of snippets from sound pictures shown 'silent'). We get to see Harold dealing with the obstreperous turkey & taking a most adventurous drive in his new car from HOT WATER (1924). A Latin American revolution causes him problems in WHY WORRY? (1923). The dog on a train and the race to the church sequences from GIRL SHY (1924) are up next. After segments from THE MILKY WAY (1936) and PROFESSOR BEWARE (1938), we are treated to the hilarious dance with Louise Closser Hale in MOVIE CRAZY (1932) and Harold's dangling from the side of the skyscraper in FEET FIRST (1930).While this compilation film is terrific fun, nothing takes the place of enjoying the movies in their full-length versions, now newly restored & freshly scored.The great success of this film internationally, as well as a special award at the Cannes Film Festival, meant Harold would certainly have to come up with a sequel of more greatest moments, which he did the following year with HAROLD LLOYD'S FUNNY SIDE OF LIFE (1963).

Another High Concept Movie that doesn't quite work out.Harold Lloyd made some of the funniest comedies in the 1920s, right? Right! So if we take the funniest parts of of his funniest movies and make a movie out of just them, it will be even funnier, right? Right.Well, no, actually. Yes, Harold Lloyd's movies are hilarious, but no, the gag sequences by themselves aren't as funny. Yes, they are wonderful to look at in terms of sheer invention and execution, but without the context of who Harold is this movie and why he happens to be pulling that particular gag, it isn't as funny. It's Harold Lloyd. It's comedy clips. You expect him to be doing something funny, so you're expecting it. Funny is unexpected. "I never saw that one coming". Instead of wondering how he's going to get out of this predicament, you wonder what predicament he's going to get into next.By all means, go see the Harold Lloyd movies, but see them as they were meant to be seen, not as someone decided forty years later how they should be seen. Even if it was Harold Lloyd.