The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947)

Surprisingly honest beginning showing what a swinery capitalism is. Then Everything turns silly and Lloyd does what he has done better elsewhere.I'm not surprised it turned out that way though. Had it continued like the beginning, we would have had the best socialist Comedy ever perhaps. That could of course not happen in a film financed by capitalists. Pity anyway.Begins in decency and ends in a snore - that's the size of it. And for the rest, I would have to say with the utmost sincirety, I guess, I would have to say: Yada, yada, yada, umpa and so fill out my lines - jaussa.

If the combined swan song from erstwhile silent clown Harold Lloyd and director Preston Sturges compares poorly to their individual, earlier masterpieces, it nevertheless remains an engaging minor work from two mismatched comic talents. The funniest sequence is, perhaps not surprisingly, the silent prologue, lifted intact from the last reel of Lloyd's 1923 classic 'The Freshman'. What happens after graduation to college gridiron hero Harold Diddlebock (Harold Lamb, in the earlier film) should have inspired a typically madcap satire of the American work ethic, but after a promising start the ideas disappear in a hurry (everything in the film happens in a hurry). The first twenty minutes, up to where Harold loses his job and boldly takes his first drink, is classic Sturges: witty, sophisticated, and quite daring for the way it gently mocks the optimistic ambitions of its hero. But in a desperate attempt to earn his laughs the easy way Sturges later enlists the help of a tame lion and fakes a thrill sequence a la 'Safety Last', for a less-than-hilarious climax more exhausting than it is exhilarating. Lloyd, ironically, caps his long career with an atypically rich (and thus, for him, all the more effective) performance, at least until all the shouting takes over.

In 1947 Preston Sturges and Harold Lloyd worked together and they came up with The Sin of Harold Diddlebock.It's a sequel for Lloyd's silent film classic The Freshman (1925).After this movie Mr.Lloyd retired from the movie business.In his last picture Harold plays a clerk who's fired from his job after twenty years.He ends up to a bar drinking and the man goes crazy.Also a lion in tow gets in a picture and lots of other funny stuff happens on a way.This movie may not be the best of Harold Lloyd, not even close, but it's mighty entertaining.And because of Harold Lloyd this movie works much better than it would have with some average comedian.Lloyd was far from average.He was Lonesome Luke and he was Glasses, which was the character that made him immortal.Lloyd may steal the show in this movie, but there are other great actors there.I could mention Jimmy Conlin, Raymond Walburn, Rudy Wallee and Edgar Kennedy.I recommend you to watch this film from 60 years back.For the Harold Lloyd fans it's a must.

While I was able to watch this film without throwing something at the TV screen, it was tough going for me since I am a HUGE fan of Harold Lloyd. For those who don't know much about Lloyd, though, I am sure the film is probably more watchable because expectations aren't nearly as high as mine were. When I think of Lloyd, I know he was one of the most brilliant comedians of all-time and produced some fabulous silent and talking films. Because of this, I could see just how far below average this film was for the actor.Quite frankly, in many places the film is just bad. The worst problem was the beginning of the movie where the final super-important football game from Lloyd's silent classic, THE FRESHMAN, was replayed. That's because at the end of the THE FRESHMAN, Harold was a hero and the film ended so perfectly. But, in MAD Wednesday, it picks up from here and shows that Harold's moment in the sun was brief and all too quickly, we see him as a pathetic washed-up has-been! This is just awful and seems to destroy that wonderful and wholesome character. How could Mr. Lloyd have allowed the writers to have done this to his once-great character?! This made the character not so much sympathetic (like "Speedy" originally was), but just pathetic.Also, at times, the jokes were very, very broad and bad. The worst was when Harold drank alcohol, he let out a very stupid and embarrassingly bad yell that was supposed to be funny. It wasn't. And to do it again and again was just beating a dead horse. I have long been critical of Preston Sturges, despite the generally high acclaim he's received. While I did enjoy a few of his films, such as HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO, I also disliked many because his sense of timing was, at times, just awful--beating jokes half to death. Sublety was NOT a trademark of his work! Some prime examples are the laughing scene towards the end of SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS and the fumbling sequence from UNFAITHFULLY YOURS--two well-received films that could have used some editing to allow the scenes to seem more realistic and less "sledgehammer symbolism". And this is sad, because for Harold Lloyd, his subtlety was so much of what made him a genius. The combination of Lloyd and Sturges was terrible--especially when the building climbing scenes from Lloyd's SAFETY LAST (a brilliant film) are terribly redone--with rotten camera-work that was so obviously fake and a lion added for god knows what reason! For Harold Lloyd fans, this is a painful to watch and completely unnecessary film. While the main plot idea of Harold getting drunk and doing some amazing things to strike it rich in the process was a good basis for a film, the rest of the film was low-energy and sub-standard.