Harold Lloyd is the quiet, unassuming Harold Diddlebock, the hard working clerk, who all of a sudden looses his job after becoming too complacent. A sip of that devil's brew all of a sudden breaks the shy man out of his skin, and before you know it, he's going all over Manhattan, buying a fancy new wardrobe, taking the clothing store workers for a night out on the town, and then waking up to find out that he's purchased a circus! Determined to get rid of this white elephant, Diddlebock heads all over town to various bankers in an attempt to get rid of it, utilizing a tamed lion as a walking prop, and ending up fighting for his life when stranded on a skyscraper ledge with the king of the jungle.A notorious flop in its day, "The Sins of Harold Diddlebock" stands the test of time, and like a dozen of other films from its era, comes off better now than it did at the time. Dozens of the best comical actors of movie history appear here in various character bits, from Edgar Kennedy as the frazzled bartender, Jimmy Conlin as his broke pal, Margaret Hamilton as his frustrated landlady, as well as Lionel Stander, Raymond Walburn, Rudy Vallee and Franklin Pangborn in other memorable parts. The film starts off with a flashback to Lloyd's silent classic "The Freshman" which shows the character during his college days, then moves to the present, taking the viewer all over New York as Harold goes through a night he'll never remember and a day after he'll never forget.The film's funniest sequence has Lloyd scaring every banker and bank customer they encounter with the lion and the beast's mad dash up a fire escape which leads to the frenetic finale where Lloyd repeats a similar visual gag from "Safety Last". Obviously set on Wall Street (with Trinity Church in the distance), this is just as potent as it was in its original, a sequence spoofed in such films as "Thoroughly Modern Millie" and "The Naked Gun".

Former funny football player Harold Lloyd (as Harold Diddlebock) spends over two decades in a dead end job, gets unhappily fired, happily drowns his sorrows in drink, then buys himself a circus. With sneaky sidekick Jimmy Conlin (as Wormy) helping, Mr. Lloyd tries to talk his pet lion "Jackie" off the ledge of a skyscraper. He has a yen for nubile young co-workers, like Frances Ramsden (as Frances Otis), but Lloyd is shy with women... Written and directed by Preston Sturges, "The Sin of Harold Diddlebock" got Lloyd out of retirement for one last film. We inappropriately begin with the end from "The Freshman" (1925) and climax by re-making a classic sequence from "Safety Last!" (1923). You'd expect to find a comment straining for something nice to say about a silent film star in decline, but this is different - Lloyd is in fine condition, the film's a mess.***** The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (2/18/47) Preston Sturges ~ Harold Lloyd, Jimmy Conlin, Frances Ramsden, Raymond Walburn

Between 1940 and 1944, Preston Sturges wrote and directed some of the best film comedy ever produced. His eight movies for that short period are all good, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that four of the eight have the touch of brilliance.This sequence of movies came to an end when Sturges left Paramount following what he legitimately saw as increasing interference by studio bosses. His high stature at the studio hadn't prevented two of his movies from being taken out of his hands and re-cut against his wishes, one of which - The Great Moment - was never restored to the movie Sturges intended.At this point, Sturges declined to join a rival studio, and instead formed a partnership with Howard Hughes, hoping to protect his future movies from the interference he could see was becoming more common within the studio system. However, for a combination of reasons, this partnership with Hughes was not a success, and the only film Sturges produces in that period - The Sin of Harold Diddlebock - shows a decline in his work.The whole look and sound of the movie is inferior. It is impossible to know whether this decline was the result of an inevitable burn-out in his ability after such sustained success, or the absence of support and quality control that Paramount had applied to the benefit of the wonderful movies that had come before.So... to "Diddlebock" itself! It is difficult to identify why it isn't as funny as we might expect. The film was created as a star vehicle for Harold Lloyd, and by all accounts his comedy instincts did not match those of Sturges. As much as Stuges tried, clearly such a big talent and personality as Lloyd was never going to completely submit to direction with which he didn't agree, and there must be some evidence of that in what we see on screen.There is a complete lack of the 'sparkle' we have come to expect. The familiar faces around Lloyd remind us of the great Sturges movies, but to me this is like an inferior pastiche of a Sturges movie by a lesser hand, without such a reliable instinct for film comedy. But perhaps that describes what Preston Sturges had become in such a short time.

I've watched movies from every era, of every genre; my favorites are comedy and SF. In the comedy genre, the only thing I can say about this movie is an unreserved THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE, ALL-TIME MOST HILARIOUS MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE.....and I've had fifty-eight years of life and experience to form that opinion in. I have two recommendations to make: 1: If you need a good, solid emotional pick-me-up, this is the movie to watch (my wife suffers from severe bouts of depression; in the midst of one of her worst bouts, this movie had her on the floor, laughing hysterically)---with one proviso: 2:DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE if you've just had abdominal surgery; it could kill you---literally.