Luke's Movie Muddle (1916) (original) (raw)
Synopsis
Lonesome Luke has a movie theater and also works the box office and as an usher. He has to put up with, among other things, an incompetent projectionist who falls asleep all the time. Complications ensue.
Cast
Popular reviews
It’s interesting how seeing Harold Lloyd outside of his Glasses character feels odd nowadays when people then would feel the opposite considering Lonesome Luke was the persona he was popular for in the 1910’s; Snub still looks the same, he’s like Newton’s law in the sense of stage makeup. There isn’t anything really funny per-say, but I’d like to point out in every silent comedy ever made with a fight scene they ALWAYS go for the neck first. I cried seeing the film strip bungled up like that
not to harp on it again but i’m really not accustomed to seeing harold lloyd without his glasses. it’s a little jarring seeing him with a mustache. i’m really not a big charlie chaplin gal so his lonesome luke character essentially being a cheap knockoff of chaplin’s tramp character doesn’t really impress me. harold’s hair looks Princely though so there’s that.
Here we have an old and early reel movie, one of the first of Harold Lloyd when he hadn't developed his main character with glasses yet.
He plays a role which remembers to Charlie Chaplin appearance. I thought at the beginning that there was a mistake in the title or something was wrong with it because of the character.
The shot is taken in a cinema, a lot of movies from this era were set in cinemas. Harold Lloyd acts as a box office clerk who tries to chase a young Bebe Daniels.
This is the perfect example of how Charlie Chaplin was an inspirational person for the time, an example to follow during the silent era, anyway as I…
Most of Harold Lloyd's "Lonesome Luke" shorts with Hal Roach are lost, but the ones that do exist are surprisingly unoriginal, especially since Harold Lloyd did later become an accomplished silent comedian in his own right. A ne'er-do-well with a drawn-on mustache and a tendency to get himself into trouble, Lonesome Luke is, in all aspects except the length of his trousers, a Little Tramp imitation.
With Harold Lloyd in what is essentially Chaplin drag, it's probably not surprising that Luke's Movie Muddle really is a muddle. Luke sells tickets at the box office, flirts with the lady customers, roughhouses patrons into their seats, and ultimately throttles his projectionist after one too many projector mishaps causes the audience's mass exodus…
guess we’ve always been making movies about the movies, ehh?
The Charlie Chaplin industrial complex is real.
I just don't know. I don't think I'll ever be able to really enjoy Harold Lloyd's Lonesome Luke shorts. He's such an obvious copy of Chaplin's tramp which i'm not much of a fan of anyways. All I can really say is thank GOD Harold Lloyd found his niche with the glasses character,,,
YEAR 2: 1916
for some reason i find the strange little cruel streak in the luke shorts immensely funny........who knows why
A mostly unfunny take on older Chaplin works.
I love Harold Lloyd's later films as the Glasses Character, but this is an example of his earlier character, Lonesome Luke, who was a blatant rip-off of Chaplin down to the look and feel.
In this film, Luke is the box office clerk, ticket checker and usher at the cinema, and there is a nice bit of physical comedy as he rushes from one role to another.
The lovely Bebe Daniels, who performed in many films with Lloyd, appears to brighten up the screen, while Snub Pollard is the clumsy projectionist. It's fairly standard frenetic silent comedy, and not a patch on the shorts and features Lloyd would move into when he left Luke behind.
Worth watching if you have a spare ten minutes, but a little of Luke may well go a long way.
A lot of these earlier Harold Lloyd shorts feel like Hal Roach noticed the success Mack Sennett was having with Chaplin and was just trying to imitate that as closely as possible. Seriously, if people think that movie studios trying replicate the success of other successes is bad in Hollywood NOW, they haven't seen what it was like in the first couple of decades. Obviously, things got better they less they did that and the more Lloyd was able to blaze his own path. I do prefer this one to the one I just watch, Peculiar Patients' Pranks, because I feel like a movie theater is just a better setting than a hospital and because Bebe Daniels has a little more to do. That's a trend that will kind of remain constant for these Harold Lloyd shorts, no matter how much else changed. They're almost always better the more Bebe Daniels has to do.
This is fascinating because it almost acts as a parody of Charlie Chaplin and his Tramp character. It feels very much like a film Chaplin would make, but instead of him, it's Harold Lloyd DRESSED as The Tramp.
The plot is simple and silly. Just some shenanigans at the movie theatre, but it's a fun time. What I love so much about this era of filmmaking, especially with comedy, is the physicality of it all.
This is no exception. Lloyd does some fun stuff! But it's not his best work.