Routine & Unimaginative, At Least By Lloyd's Standards

Backstage with Harold & the gang, trying to work up some laughs

Hal Roach Studios - 8822 Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA

Margaret Joslin and Harold Lloyd in The Non-Stop Kid (1918)

Sammy Brooks, Bebe Daniels, Helen Gilmore, Gus Leonard, Harold Lloyd, Fred C. Newmeyer, Noah Young, and Marie Benson in Bumping Into Broadway (1919)

Sammy Brooks, Harry Burns, Bebe Daniels, James A. Fitzgerald, William Gillespie, Lew Harvey, Wally Howe, Bud Jamison, Harold Lloyd, and 'Snub' Pollard in Ask Father (1919)

Bebe Daniels and Harold Lloyd in Ring Up the Curtain (1919)

There's a sucker born every minute and I musta been twins.

Bebe Daniels, Dee Lampton, Harold Lloyd, and 'Snub' Pollard in Ring Up the Curtain (1919)

Harold Lloyd in Ring Up the Curtain (1919)

Harold Lloyd

Bebe Daniels

&apos;Snub&apos; Pollard

Stage hand Harold falls in love with the leading lady of a visiting theatrical troupe.

Alfred J. Goulding

Ring Up the Curtain

Backstage with Harold &amp; the gang, trying to work up some laughs

For the most part Harold Lloyd&apos;s early short films are enjoyable, and a few of them are little gems, but Ring Up the Curtain is not one of his better surviving works. Our setting is a small town theater where Harold is the resident stage hand and jack-of-all-trades, and when a touring troupe of players featuring Bebe Daniels blows into town he is determined to make time with her. That&apos;s about it for plot. Normally I enjoy any comedy with a theatrical setting, but this is a perfunctory effort, mildly diverting but disappointing over all; it&apos;s Harold on Auto-Pilot.

On the plus side, we have the rich backstage atmosphere of a small town vaudeville house. The setting alone will interest theater buffs, but better examples are offered in a number of silent comedies more enjoyable than this one, such as Roscoe Arbuckle&apos;s two-reeler Back Stage, co-starring Buster Keaton, and Keaton&apos;s subsequent solo classic The Playhouse. In Lloyd&apos;s Ring Up the Curtain, once you get past the period charm, the gags are pretty random. For example: when a midget actor enters, he is immediately trampled; then when a hefty man enters, he is immediately punched in the stomach. There&apos;s no reason for any of it, we don&apos;t know who they are, and we don&apos;t see them again. It happens because midgets and fat guys are funny, I guess, and besides, nothing else that occurs in this film is motivated, either. Everyone seems to be straining hard for laughs. Much is made of a snake discovered in one of the dressing rooms -- the actors run around looking terrified (although the snake appears quite sleepy-looking and harmless), because that&apos;s what you do when a snake is found in a short like this one. Harold attempts to charm the snake, Hindu-style, but the sequence sputters out without much of a punchline. Snub Pollard has a brief bit on-stage that I found more interesting than the backstage shenanigans, but it&apos;s over in a blink. After a while we no longer care about these characters; the comic sequences aren&apos;t developed in a way that engages the viewer, and then, to top it all off, the bizarre closing gag is in poor taste.

Harold Lloyd is great in An Eastern Westerner, High and Dizzy, and lots of other shorts he made once he hit his stride, but Ring Up the Curtain doesn&apos;t show him off to best advantage. According to a reference work on Lloyd, this movie marked his 135th starring film for the Rolin Company, as the Hal Roach Studio was known at the time. Perhaps Harold and his crew needed a vacation.

For the most part Harold Lloyd's early short films are enjoyable, and a few of them are little gems, but Ring Up the Curtain is not one of his better surviving works. Our setting is a small town theater where Harold is the resident stage hand and jack-of-all-trades, and when a touring troupe of players featuring Bebe Daniels blows into town he is determined to make time with her. That's about it for plot. Normally I enjoy any comedy with a theatrical setting, but this is a perfunctory effort, mildly diverting but disappointing over all; it's Harold on Auto-Pilot.

On the plus side, we have the rich backstage atmosphere of a small town vaudeville house. The setting alone will interest theater buffs, but better examples are offered in a number of silent comedies more enjoyable than this one, such as Roscoe Arbuckle's two-reeler Back Stage, co-starring Buster Keaton, and Keaton's subsequent solo classic The Playhouse. In Lloyd's Ring Up the Curtain, once you get past the period charm, the gags are pretty random. For example: when a midget actor enters, he is immediately trampled; then when a hefty man enters, he is immediately punched in the stomach. There's no reason for any of it, we don't know who they are, and we don't see them again. It happens because midgets and fat guys are funny, I guess, and besides, nothing else that occurs in this film is motivated, either. Everyone seems to be straining hard for laughs. Much is made of a snake discovered in one of the dressing rooms -- the actors run around looking terrified (although the snake appears quite sleepy-looking and harmless), because that's what you do when a snake is found in a short like this one. Harold attempts to charm the snake, Hindu-style, but the sequence sputters out without much of a punchline. Snub Pollard has a brief bit on-stage that I found more interesting than the backstage shenanigans, but it's over in a blink. After a while we no longer care about these characters; the comic sequences aren't developed in a way that engages the viewer, and then, to top it all off, the bizarre closing gag is in poor taste.

Harold Lloyd is great in An Eastern Westerner, High and Dizzy, and lots of other shorts he made once he hit his stride, but Ring Up the Curtain doesn't show him off to best advantage. According to a reference work on Lloyd, this movie marked his 135th starring film for the Rolin Company, as the Hal Roach Studio was known at the time. Perhaps Harold and his crew needed a vacation.

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