User reviews

Harold Lloyd and Preston Sturges are in the same boat, really. In their respective times, they were beloved stars. Now, the rank and file don't really remember them, or if they do remember them it's for a limited selection of films which don't necessarily reflect their full bodies of work. For Lloyd, audiences really only know him as the guy who's always hanging from the clock in the Chuck Workman montages that pop up during award shows, no concept at all that he was, in his time, far more successful than Buster Keaton and on the same level as Chaplin. And for Sturges, only filmlovers really remember him, even though the best of his films, like Palm Beach Story and Sullivan's Travels are among the very best of their time.

Lloyd, of course, was a silent comedy icon. After the depression is career slumped and while he made a series of largely unsuccessful sound films trying to maintain the verve of his silent comedies, audiences simply were not interested. In 1947, though, he attempted another comeback in the film The Sins of Harold Diddlebock. Directed by Preston Sturges, Diddlebock capitalized on Lloyd's past rather than avoiding it. The film took the interesting question "What happened to Harold Lamb (Lloyd's character from The Freshman, his most popular silent film) after the Depression?" In doing so, the film also examined what happened to Lloyd's image.

Diddlebock opens with the final 10 minutes of The Freshman, the triumphant football game. Shifting to sound almost immediately after the final whistle, Lloyd's character goes from youthful exuberance to aged desperation. Following the game, we discover, Harold took a bookkeeping job at an ad agency hoping to move straight to the top. Like his character in Safety Last (the classic where he hangs from that big clock) all he wanted was the chance to pitch his one great idea. But that chance never came and nearly twenty years after he lost his savings in the Crash, Harold loses his job as well. Grey haired, face set in wrinkles, Harold goes into the world with only a small pension. But with the help of a night of drinking, a horse named after his aunt, a look-alike sister played by Margaret Hamilton (the Wicked Witch of the West), and an old boozehound named Worm, he reclaims his comic genius, briefly owns a circus with 37 lions, and, well, perhaps you can see where this late screwball comedy is going. Diddlebock went nearly a million dollars over budget and was reedited and renamed (to Mad Wednesday). It was a disaster.

Looking at the film objectively, many years later, it certainly isn't so bad. The central stylistic conceit is that the silent slapstick of Lloyd's age and the verbal acrobatics that made Sturges famous were not so different at all. Sturges goes so far as to change Lloyd's character's name from "Lamb" to "Diddlebock" to create a slapstick of nomenclature. Diddlebock also proves fairly conclusively that Lloyd's decline was not caused by an inability to handle speaking roles. In this film he keeps up his end of the witty repartee and even harmonizes in a chorus of "Auld Lang Syne." The film also pays homage to Safety Last's human fly scene with a skyscraper chase scene involving Lloyd and a lion. Even at 53, Lloyd was still fit enough to handle the stunts, including swinging upside down from a leash. And yet, for all of its charm, Diddlebock must have seemed out of place. By that point audiences probably didn't remember Lloyd and didn't want to remember the Depression.

The problem is that the film is just a little too clunky and, like the worst of Sturges's writing, relies largely on expositional monologues to justify plot contrivances. Also, the film just doesn't have the zip that Sturges's films had at their peak. Still, it's a pleasant combination of elements, capitalizing on Lloyd's considerable personal appeal, Sturges's talent (even low Sturges is better than, well, most things), and several members of Sturges's stock troupe, including Jimmy Conlin as drunk gambler Wormy. The fact that audiences of the time rejected it shouldn't have any impact on people with unjaded eyes viewing it today.

Look for the 90 minute version, by the way.

I'd give Harold Diddlebock a 7 out of 10. It's worth a look if you're a fan of either Lloyd or Sturges.

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.

An interesting if ultimately unsuccessful combination of two clashing comedy styles (overseen by humorless mogul Howard Hughes no less), this film turned out to be Harold Lloyd's swan-song - and, as such, it ended on a somewhat positive note (even though the film was made during Sturges' period of decline).

It opens with a reprise of the climactic football game from one of Lloyd's greatest successes, THE FRESHMAN (1925), eventually bringing that same character (albeit renamed!) up to date. Still, in the end, the film is more Sturges than Lloyd: even if the star plays one of his trademark roles of a patsy (though not without the occasional display of ingenuity), there is little of the star's characteristic slapstick here. Instead, the comedy is in Sturges' typical frantic (and, mainly, dialogue-driven) style - with which Lloyd isn't entirely comfortable; the film also features Sturges' stock company of character players in full swing. That said, it's climaxed by yet another of the star comedian's thrilling set-pieces which finds him overhanging from a building-ledge - hampered this time around by a myopic Jimmy Conlin and an understandably disgruntled circus lion!

While a disappointing whole (it was re-issued in 1950 in a shortened version renamed MAD Wednesday), the film does contain a number of undeniable gems: his romantic attachment to every female member of one particular family (all of whom happen to work for the same firm over a 20-year period); his first encounter with Conlin, with the two of them exchanging wise sayings (the optimistic Lloyd had kept a handful nailed to the wall behind him at his former workplace) in order to explain their current dejected state-of-mind; and, best of all, the unforgettable scene in which Lloyd takes his first alcoholic beverage (an impromptu concoction by bartender Edgar Kennedy and which he names "The Diddlebock") that invariably provokes an unexpected yet hilarious reaction.

The last laugh of any great clown is interesting, if only for its memento mori value. Laurel & Hardy's last film, UTOPIA, is sadly botched but moments of their grand comedy still flair up, like Marc Antony's final bravery in Shakespeare's Antony & Cleopatra. The grandiose W.C. Fields still holds his own in SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD, even though he was deathly ill with alcohol poisoning. The Marx Brother's LOVE HAPPY is mainly a vehicle for one last pantomime fling for brother Harpo -- and all the more poignant for it. Chaplin's KING IN NEW YORK is a splendid idea -- we chuckle at its conception -- though Chaplin conducts himself like a department store floorwalker more than a comedian. And Harold Lloyd's last movie seems to me to be a nostalgic conspiracy between him and director Sturges, a Last Hurrah to remind movie audiences one last time of the glorious slapstick & pantomime heritage that America was in the process of losing forever as the old clowns faded from the scene and brash lunatics like Martin & Lewis or Bob Hope took over the reins of comedy. Lloyd's film exists in several differently edited versions, but I won't call any of them "butchered", just misunderstood. By the late Forties there weren't any skilled editors around who could quite understand the cadence, the beat, the nearly-balletic timing that a great clown brought to the camera and needed the editor to highlight -- such things as double-takes, long shots of the chase and just stationary shooting when the clown is unfolding a gag. Lloyd produced a novel, a War & Peace, if you will, of vintage gags -- his editors only understood short stories or magazine articles. They grew nervous when the camera lingered on anybody or anything. But great comedy is just that -- lingering. In his final film Lloyd wants to loiter over gags silly and profound. His dawdling is cut short and the truncated comedy that follows seems at times stiff and childish. But before Harold is relegated to the dusty shadows he still pulls off much nonsense that is both genial and brassy -- not a coming attraction, but a dignified retreat back to the Land of Belly Laughs. Anyone grounded in American cinematic comedy feels abit like one of the children in the story of the Pied Piper; we wish we could go with him back into that wonderful, magical, mountain.

In 1947, 9 years after his last film, Harold Lloyd re-appeared once more to give the world his swansong. The story tells of a college hero who ends up in a dead-end job and how his life changes when he ends up redundant aftter 22 years. There will always be an interest in the last film of any great clown and while some disappoint, Lloyds finale is quite a joy. Make no mistake though, this is a far cry from his groundbreaking, hilarious romps of the 20's, but if you don't expect that you'll have a very enjoyable 90 minutes. After being made redundant the lifelong teetotal ends up getting drunk very quickly, and noisily!! Later on Harold wins a fortune on the horses embarks on a huge bender. When it's all over and Harold wakes up and he realises he can't remember a single thing about Wednesday! It turns out he had bought a circus and the rest of the film centres around that little problem. As you might hope with a Lloyd film there are antics high on a skyscraper which, strangely, aren't as convincing as his silent days of yore but still amuse. On a whole the film is fine ending to Lloyd's movie career, while not capturing his early greatness, the film entertains and a good few belly laughs are to be had. There is a romantic sub-plot, but this is kept exceedingly minimal and is quite amusing in it's own way.

Previously, I had only seen one Harold Lloyd feature film (Safety Last, which I loved), and a couple of short films that he made. I was fascinated by the obscure actor, whose name only the most knowledgeable of film buffs will recognize. Sure, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton are great, but so was Harold Lloyd. He has unfairly been forgotten by almost everyone. Nowadays, the only video one can find in America of his work is his updating of his character from The Freshman, The Sin of Mr. Diddlebock, also called Mad Wedensday. So I rented it, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. While it is not as funny as a silent movie would be (anyone who is familiar with silent comedy will tell you, I believe, that there has never been anything funnier than the silent comedies), it is still witty and funny and quite enjoyable. It's not a laugh riot, but it was always entertaining. I'm guessing that a lot of the film was based on Lloyd's famous silent movies, perhaps not entirely forgotten in 1947 (or maybe they were, since The Sin of Mr. Diddlebock was re-edited and renamed and rereleased in 1950). I know that the scenes with Harold trying to rescue his lion from a high building ledge at least seemed to be pointing back to Safety Last, but the newer scenes were a lot less impressive than his old ones. Still, if I can't find his masterpieces, at least I can enjoy some steady work of his. 7/10

Harold Lloyd said farewell to the big screen with his collaboration with director Preston Sturges on The Sin Of Harold Diddlebock. While some of Lloyd's humor from his great days is retained in this film it will not be remembered as one of the best from either Lloyd or Sturges.

Possibly I think that Lloyd may have been too old to be doing all the physical comedy this role called for. It was not as bad as Stan Laurel in Utopia because Lloyd was in better health, but he clearly was playing his age and people in their fifties just don't do some of the crazy stunts this role required.

And Lloyd was one of the most physical of silent screen comedians and certain things were expected of him, most especially his work hanging from ledges in high places. The public that remembered him expected that and Harold was obliged to give it to them.

In the title role we first get a prologue of sorts from Lloyd's greatest silent screen hit The Freshman where we see him glasses and all winning the big football game for his school. After that an enthusiastic Raymond Walburn offers him a job at his advertising agency and Lloyd thinks this is the start of a great career.

Flash forward by presidents from the Harding to the Truman years and we see Lloyd just toiling away at a drudge job and then gets the final blow. No doubt to make room for some eager young hotshot fresh from college, Lloyd gets the pink slip.

After getting his pink slip from Walburn fortune takes Lloyd to a bar run by Edgar Kennedy and the companionship of Jimmy Conlin. Where he takes his first drink, a concoction mixed by Kennedy and he changes in personality totally. After that it gets way too complicated to describe.

The famous stunts from cinematically achieved great heights, a specialty of Lloyd's involves Lloyd, Conlin, and a circus lion on the edge of a skyscraper ledge. It's good, but doesn't work as well as those same stunts in Lloyd's salad days.

As for Preston Sturges, he borrows a leaf from WC Fields who borrows from Charles Dickens in creating some great character names starting with the title role. Look down the cast list of some great character players who have names suiting their personalities. Fields did the same in The Bank Dick which is a much better film.

The Sin Of Harold Diddlebock is a decent enough film for Harold Lloyd to put his career to rest, but far from his or Preston Sturges's best work.

My comment refers to THE SIN OF HAROLD DIDDLEBOCK, as I haven't seen the edited version Mad Wednesday-but I believe some cutting might do this film good. Too bad this movie is currently the most available Lloyd movie on the market. This great genius just shouldn't have ended his career with a movie like this-he certainly deserved a gracefully nostalgic summing-up like Chaplin with Limelight or Keaton with The Railrodder . Lloyd never starred in such a sloppy feature before. His idea of making a comedy just didn't go with that of Sturges. In this rowdy parade of lowest kind of slapstick, with unnatural puns and sayings as dialogue, there is little room for Lloyd to build up anything, neither gags, nor characterization. Too bad, for this film did have a good idea(what becomes of the go-getter who fails to achieve anything) to begin with, and a grand opening(highlight from The Freshman finale), and some terrific acting Lloyd delivered as a washed-up clerk who got fired after working for 20 years at the same position. All these look promising about 25 minutes, then the film just runs out of control. It even gives you an improvising feeling as it stumbles towards the end, when everybody has to shout their lines but nobody seems to know what is going on. . This film is so messy that resembles some low budget early talkie comedies, yet it was made in 1946! What a shame.

This film drags in some parts, and Lloyd I think puts off some modern viewers. The first time I watched it I thought it was the film equivalent of seeing Ali vs. Andre the Giant. But Sturges' brilliance is in here, and the degree to which it is derived from Lloyd is paid homage to in a wonderful, dark, surreal way. How can you not love a film that starts with the last moments of Lloyd's The Freshman and then shows the hero turned into a mail room stooge who gets buried by the corporate system? The ending is wonderfully hypnotic, happy? Well as is always the case, the poor down trodden guy figures out how to operate the machine just enough to produce his own deus ex machina. Sturges and Lloyd look more brilliant and visionary than ever from the vantage point of post-Enron, MCI, etc.

One of the best and most consistent prime periods for any director in my mind belonged to Preston Sturges. From 1940 to 1944, he made seven films that ranged from very good to masterpiece, with them being 'The Great McGinty', 'Christmas in July', 'The Lady Eve', 'Sullivan's Travels', 'The Palm Beach Story', 'The Miracle of Morgan's Creek'and 'Hail the Conquering Hero', also loved 'Unfaithfully Yours'.

As one may have guessed, Sturges, with one of his last films, was the main reason for seeing 'The Sin of Harold Diddlebock'. Another interest point of the film was seeing immensely talented Harold Lloyd in his swan-song after coming out of retirement. Seeing it, 'The Sin of Harold Diddlebock' was pretty decent if rather strange. It is not near as good as any of the above, though in all fairness they are of such a high standard that it would be a tall order to reach their level, and as far as Sturges films go it is a lesser film of his to me. At the same time, it has just about enough to it to stop it from being in his top three worst, do consider it a superior film to 'The Great Moment', 'The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend' and 'The Diary of Major Thompson' (or 'The French, They are a Funny Race'), though neither of those three were unwatchable and had their moments. It is far from being one of Lloyd's best too, like Sturges this is far from his prime period but the film still makes the most of him.

Lloyd has and is great fun in his role, being very funny and endearing, with great comic timing and just as much in the physicality. The things that contributed towards his appeal is evident and hardly wasted here and enough of the humour played to his strengths. Not all silent film stars transitioned well into sound (including Buster Keaton, and this is being said with a heavy heart), Lloyd didn't fare too badly on this front though. The supporting cast also work very well, and Jackie the Lion comes very close to stealing the show. The costumes and sets are nice.

The first 20 minutes, with a corker of a beginning, especially is unmistakable Sturges in writing, with wit, sophistication, class and insight that were found in the films made in his prime and not found in his later films. The more physical humour is never awe-inspiring and not as daring as earlier Lloyd efforts, but they are still well staged and timed and play to Lloyd's strengths. Great to see reprises of some of his best work and there are a good deal of funny moments, it is agreed hard to forget the first alcoholic beverage scene with the first Conlin encounter not too far behind. The man losing his job aspect was done in a way that was unexpectedly poignant and sympathetic. There is thankfully not the sense that Sturges wasn't interested in the film, a feeling felt in 'The Diary of Major Thompson'.

Not everything is great though. There is some clunky exposition and contrived storytelling, while not all the pacing is there. A few draggy stretches that needed more energy and then in some of the latter parts of the film it loses control and gets too wildly over-the-top, far too broad and try-too-hard-like.

Especially towards the end before pretty much petering out. It's not one of the best-looking Sturges films either, with moments of choppy editing indicative that things were missing and the redone scenes look cheap. It could have done with more freshness and subtlety in general.

Summarising, decent but strange. Both Sturges and Lloyd have done far better, but they are not disgraced either. 6/10

"The Sin of Harold Diddlebock" and "Mad Wednesday" are like two twins who hate each other, so they try to change the way they look. Preston Sturges talked Harold Lloyd into coming back to movies after he had retired. Not only that but Lloyd allowed Sturges to use part of his film "The Freshman" for the opening of the film and to be an investor. Their agreement was that each had the final cut of the film. Lloyds' cut is called "The Sin of Harold Diddlebock". Sturges' is called "Mad Wednesday".

Some material is lost on both cuts and some is added. Both are utterly funny with "Mad Wednesday" being a little crazier. Rudy Vallee is almost lost in "Diddlebock" but a major character in "Wednesday". And though both end with Lloyd and Frances Ramsden (The next Mrs. Sturges) in a horse drawn carriage, the last shot of "Wednesday" has the horse singing to the lovers.

If you are interested in how two comic geniuses could shape the same material into two different pictures, then you must see them both. Silly. Funny. Absolutely must sees.

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.

A strange film. Written and directed by the brilliant filmmaker Preston Sturges, and starring silent film comedian Harold Lloyd (about 20 years after his prime), this movie tells the story of a college football hero who settles into a rut as he reaches middle age. Suddenly fired from his dead-end job, the milquetoasty Mr. Diddlebock uses his severance money to break out of his rut, embark on a series of adventures over a wild two or three days alongside a chance acquaintance, the aptly named Wormy (played by Sturges regular Jimmy Conlin), and pursue the woman of his dreams.

Even though this film lacks some of the subtlety, sophistication and polish of some of Preston Sturges' earlier work, it nevertheless (in true Sturges fashion) hides away some pretty heady ideas about growing old, taking chances, and living life to the fullest. this film, a minor entry in the Sturges catalog, would have been the crowning achievement in the career of anyone else. Watch this one, if only to find out what Harold really did on Wednesday!

Harold Lloyd came out of retirement after nine years to make "The Sin of Harold Diddlebock." The 53-year old actor reprised one of his building ledge scenarios from his much younger days in silent films ("Safety Last" of 1923). Lloyd is unquestionably the master of the high ledge antics. He's so good, and the filming of his scenes is so real that I've always been on the edge of my seat when watching those nail-biters.

Preston Sturges wrote and directed this wacky film. He may have been able to lure Lloyd back to work for one more film. After an opening scenario on the football field (a replay from "The Freshman" of 1925), the plot slows down and quickly becomes dull. But, when it picks back up Harold gets up a head of steam that leads to the climax with the great ledge hanging scenes.

The film has a good supporting cast. It's not the funniest script but it has some raucously funny sections. The ledge-hanging scenes alone make it worthwhile.

Lloyd made 214 films in his career that began in 1913. All but eight of those were silent films made before 1929. Most movies made in the early days of the silent era were short films. They would vary from 10 minutes to more than 35. Shorts today are films with a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all the credits.

I mean, who hasn't had a midlife crisis, gotten hammered, and bought a circus?

Once again proving that there is nothing new under the sun, The Sin Harold Diddlebock is one of the earlier examples of a legacy/belated sequel to a popular film that, while having its moments, is underwhelming and not the best work of any talent involved (the main two people being Harold Lloyd and Preston Sturges). The film opens with the climactic football game from The Freshman and has Harold moving on from college to an ad agency as an "ideas" man. Because of ageist policies, he is unceremoniously let go, with his remaining company investment acting as his severance pay. He then proceeds to go on a drinking binge and ends up buying a circus, which he tries to unload on someone else once he sobers up. There wasn't a lot here that was very funny or clever, although to be fair, it wasn't offensively bad either. The best sequence was a throwback/homage to highwire stunts he did in High and Dizzy and Safety Last, this time involving a lion named Jackie. While The Freshman was the prototypical college comedy, this film's major contribution is setting the stage for belated sequels that pick up with their main character after a long period of time (think Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny or Top Gun: Maverick). When it comes down to it, the end result was merely mediocre, and is (like me) for Harold Lloyd completists.

Random aside: Where's our belated sequel to Adam Sandler's movie, The Waterboy?

He doesn't have the same name recognition of some of his contemporaries, but the man served up the same reliable retinue of stunts, gags, situational humor, physical comedy, witty dialogue (imparted through intertitles), and downright silliness. There is no going wrong with any of Harold Lloyd's silent films, for each and every one is a terrific, funny classic. The same cannot be said for his work in the sound era, unfortunately, for only 1932's 'Movie crazy' matched the cleverness and vitality of his efforts preceding the advent of talkies; while all mildly enjoyable in some measure, everything else Lloyd made from 1929's 'Welcome danger' onward through the 30s paled in comparison. So what of this 1947 feature, his last starring vehicle, coming a full nine years after 'Professor beware?' What could 'The sin of Harold Diddlebock' mean for a career that in my opinion had flagged at least fifteen years before? The good news is that this is an improvement to one degree or another over some of his prior sound output, and at points it comes reasonably close to meeting the standards of his best pictures. The bad news is that this is still far from Lloyd's best, and it's uneven to an extent that places distinct upper limits on how much fun there is to be had here. I'm glad for those who get more out of this than I do, but in my mind it's very so-so.

The first ten minutes or so start well as we begin with recycled footage from 1925's 'The freshman,' with additional footage appended that carries much the same spirit. It's regrettable that the rest of the first third is darn near soporific, marked by a downcast tone and a dearth of energy. As we enter the second act we get a burst of the vibrancy and wit we expect and want from the icon, though it does rather seem that Lloyd is overcompensating, becoming overbearing in the utmost zest of the moment. For better and for worse, this dichotomy will come to define the length beyond that first stretch: kind of dull and unimpressive at some points, and at others bearing more recognizable tinges of the imagination and electricity we hope for, but often characterized by excessive, bombastic raucousness that overshadows the ingenuity we should be remarking upon instead. Exemplifying the point, the major sequence of the third act revisits for the second time the skyscraper scene that made 1923's 'Safety last!' famous (see also 1930's somewhat lackluster 'Feet first'), but now with extra yelling to greet our ears. It's not that this title isn't enjoyable, but I don't think I laughed once the entire time, and the fun to be had in 'The sin of Harold Diddlebock' is indeed sadly flaccid, through to the final scene that returns us to the general sleepiness of the first act.

While true for any given era, it seems sometimes that in the 30s and 40s especially we got a glut of fare out of Hollywood that was rather middling: well made, perhaps, but not making any particular impression, and being rather forgettable. This fits into that category more than not. The plot is thin and flimsy, and the situational humor and gags are highly variable in their quality. It's well done in terms of costume design, hair, makeup, stunts, and so on, but none of this matters all that much when the sum total is never more than lightly amusing. It's not bad, and I can readily name three of Lloyd's prior talkies to which I absolutely think this is superior ('Professor beware,' 'The milky way,' and above all 'The cat's paw'), but that isn't necessarily saying much. And the whole thing is that for a man whose best work is wonderfully entertaining from top to bottom, to fall from those heights and turn out material that's ultimately rather negligible is all but calamitous. Maybe we can say that he was trying something different in the latter part of his career, and that's fine; maybe we can say, in this instance, that a troubled production soured the possibilities for what the end result would become - but one way or another, the result still has to elicit the desired reaction in the audience. And I find myself pretty well nonplussed.

Watch if you like; I hope you like it. For my part, I would strongly recommend following this by rewatching 'The freshman' in full, or 'Safety last! Or 'Why worry?' or any of the star's silent offerings that stand taller by head, shoulders, knees, and toes. I can now say that I've seen 'The sin of Harold Diddlebock'; would that it meant anything to me.

{This review is for the 89-minute version.}

Harold Lloyd revisiting one of his silent-comedy classics with the help of one of the sound era's most revered directors reads like a match made in heaven. The reality is much more earth-bound.

Harold Diddlebock (Lloyd) is first seen in a flashback to his college days, a heroic escapade lifted entirely from the 1925 Lloyd comedy "The Freshman." Two decades later, the game-winning student has become an office drone, so much so his boss fires him for lack of initiative. Drowning his sorrows in strong drink for the first time, Diddlebock wakes up to discover he is wearing a loud checkered suit and lost all memory of the previous day.

What we know, and he doesn't, is that his dismissal has awoken a ferocious beast inside him: "A man works all his life in a glass factory, well, one day he feels like picking up a hammer."

This seems a fantastic set-up for a Walter-Mitty-style comedy; add to it the legendary Preston Sturges as writer-director, bringing along his team of wisecracking supporting players, and what's not to like?

Apart from two or three scenes, pretty much everything.

"Diddlebock" spends too much time replaying "The Freshman," with insert shots of Diddlebock's future boss overreacting to every play on screen. Then we fast-forward to the then-present, in which the boss drops the boom on middle-aged Harold. Sturges and Lloyd play this very real, with only some black humor for levity.

This actually kind of works, as it effectively sets up Harold's rebellion. Coaxed into a bar by Sturges regular Jimmy Conlin, he tells bartender Edgar Kennedy that this drink will be a first-time experience.

"You arouse the artist in me," the bartender murmurs, inventing a concoction he calls the "Diddlebock."

Then Harold's off to the races, literally, putting all his severance money on a pair of longshot horses. The sequence is sustained nuttiness, up there with the best Sturges comedies.

But the second half, woof, what a stinker! You get the feeling either Sturges never developed his story, or else lost it in the editing room. Instead of a development of the Diddlebock character, Sturges has Lloyd walk around with a lion and a ten-gallon hat, something about impressing bankers to invest in a circus idea, while Conlin trails after him screaming "Mr. Diddlebock!" over and over.

It's such a shame because the film had a chance of being so much better. Sturges revisits old themes, sending up capitalism especially with the notion of Diddlebock's midlife crisis being brought on by corporate greed. Lloyd shows he had skills as an actor, developing pathos and charm (the latter especially in a sequence with Frances Ramsden playing the youngest of seven sisters with whom Harold has successively, unsuccessfully fallen in love).

But all that good groundwork comes to naught as Sturges sticks Lloyd on a building to revisit past glories, dangling from a lion's leash with Conlin overacting by his side. This plays so hollow it makes one long for when he was just a fired office drone. Diddlebock finds success, improbably enough; more understandable is the sad fact neither Sturges nor Lloyd worked much after this half-baked partnership bombed.

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.

This movie is billed as a comedy but the story gives little cause for laughter. Instead the movie dramatizes the plight of workers who labor for years in utter obscurity, buried alive in huge bureaucracies where they labor and are then discarded like a worthless commodity. That is not funny, even if it's Harold Loyd acting the role and Preston Sturges as the director. At first the movie seems to be little more than a cheap two-reeler, almost amateurish in its production. But after a while it becomes apparent that the movie contains a subliminal message relating to the human condition and how people have to become almost crazy in order to break through the shackles that smother their individuality and creativity. This theme does not inspire laughter. Indeed it is baffling why this movie was made at all.

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

Hearing that this film was a disaster at the time of its release, I was not expecting much from it. I was surprised that it was a delightful 90 minutes with a marvelous farewell performance by Lloyd that showed him at top of his game.

I haven't seen any other talking films by Lloyd, so I only have his silent films to compare this with. I thought this was as good as most of the silents I have seen. The silents generally contain a few slow but amusing exposition parts mixed with great 10 minute sequences of 30 or 40 memorable gags. That is pretty much what you get here. The football beginning scene, the drinking scene and the lion on the ledge scene are the great sequences. The lion on the ledge scene is as good and funny as anything in Lloyd's silents.

Lloyd did this film when he was 55. While Keaton did lots of amusing and good stuff after age 40, nothing came close to this silents. Chaplin also faded after 50. "The Great Dictator," which he did at age 50 was his last great film. "Monsieur Verdoux," "Limelight" and "A King in New York" are good films, but aren't Chaplin at his best. Lloyd looks fit and youthful here and we watch him intensely in every scene without thinking about any of his earlier films.

Preston Sturges knows how to make even the smallest character actor shine and that is his contribution here. The character actors like Margaret Hamilton or Edgar Kennedy might only get six or seven minutes of screen time but they are fresh and delightful, not relying on their past work, but creating new and hilarious characters.

The bit about Lloyd falling in love with seven sisters who all worked in his office is pure Sturges. Some people are going to find it silly rather than funny, but I laughed.

I understand that it was not released for two years and then flopped. As often happens, the quality of a work is not necessarily related to its appreciation in its first showing. Sixty years later, it is easier to see it as an odd and charming little masterpiece.

Legacy sequels aren't anything new, it seems. Hoping to work with Harold Lloyd years after his retirement, Preston Sturges wrote a sequel to The Freshman, one of Lloyd's most beloved silent comedies from the early 1920s, taking Lloyd's central character and imagining what would happen to him after twenty years of being placed in a small box before breaking out into Lloyd-esque antics one more time. Reportedly, the perfectionist Sturges shut Lloyd out of the creation process, especially around the third act and its stunts, something that Lloyd scholars and fans hold against Sturges. However, you know what? It was pretty darn funny.

Harold Diddlebock (Lloyd) finishes up his big freshman game on the football field and is approached by the ad man E. J. Waggleberry (Raymond Walburn) for a job once he finishes college. Diddlebock (I do love Sturges' affinity for silly names) does so, and Waggleberry gives him the honor of starting at the bottom to work his way up as a bookkeeper, but twenty years pass, Diddlebock is still at the same desk, and Waggleberry fires him because he's getting rid of all the old people he can. Dejected, Diddlebock runs into Wormy (Jimmy Conlin), an errant drunk asking for a few dollars who introduces the newly unemployed man to alcohol for the first time, sending him on a bender that he can't remember but leaves him with a crazy suit, memories of winning big on horse races with the last of his savings, and ownership of a circus.

This being a Sturges film, he really takes his time setting everything up. I really admire his ability to structure scripts (which is part of what made The Great Moment so jarring) into strict three-acts with a clear idea of where he's taking the characters he's building. However, the central conceit often doesn't come up until the second act starts. Here, it's actually more than halfway through the second act (Robert McKee probably had strokes every time he watched a Sturges film). That first half until we get to the actual conceit is a series of comic vignettes, first the replay of the football game, then Diddlebock's time in the bar, to the bender, and finally to Diddlebock trying to figure out what happened on his missing Wednesday, especially when he discovers a coach complete with driver he bought and paid the salary of in his blackout. It's all funny stuff, anchored by both Lloyd's ability as a comic actor (that he didn't have a bigger career in the talkies is sad, I think) and Sturges' writing which is always character-focused and funny.

The back half of the film is where zaniness rears its head, and its largely around Diddlebock leading a lion around New York, trying to get funding from bankers for his circus which he can't afford to maintain (a ton of hay for an elephant everyday is expensive), and it's an escalating series of events ending with Diddlebock and Wormy on the ledge of a highrise, recalling Lloyd's most famous images from Safety Last without really matching it. Still, it's funny, zany stuff.

This film as a whole does exist somewhere in between Sturges and Lloyd, trying to combine the two sensibilities that are actually fairly different from a comic point of view. Sturges is more dialogue-driven and structured while Lloyd's comedy was more about finding comedy within larger set pieces (thinking of the bit in Safety Last! Where Lloyd has to get cloth from a high spot in a store while a mad sale is going on around him). I think Sturges strikes the balance surprisingly well. It's a lighter fare, more along the lines of The Miracle of Morgan's Creek rather than something with more dramatic weight like Hail the Conquering Hero. That meshes well with the Lloyd side of things that tend towards the zany and silly, complete with Sturges' embrace of the central mystery of what Diddlebock was doing on that missing Wednesday, complete with an extra, added bonus dealing with the youngest sister, Miss Otis (Frances Ramsden), of a family of whom Diddlebock has loved every sister in succession, letting each go to marry other men in the same office. It's more of a bookend than a central mystery, but it's a fun added bonus to the ending that Sturges throws in at the end.

Is this one of the great films from either men? Not really. Is it an entertaining trifle that builds well, elicits chuckles, and has some small thrills along the way? I think so. Is it unfortunate that Sturges left Paramount to work with Howard Hughes who pulled the film from distribution, recut it into Mad Wednesday, failed to secure the copyright, and let the film fall into obscurity before he went off to ruin more filmmaking attempts? Probably. Still, it's amusing, light, and fun. I had a good time with it.

The plot.

Twenty years after his triumphs as a freshman on the football field, Harold is a mild-mannered clerk who dreams about marrying the girl at the desk down the aisle.

But losing his job destroys that dream, and when he finds a particularly potent drink at his local bar, he goes on a very strange and funny rampage (with a lion in tow).

A rather odd film that doesn't really work. Not sure why it gets such good reviews. It was so poorly received when it came out that Howard Hughes pulled it, re-edited it and released it as Mad Wednesday in 1950! With an apparently shorter version that nearly cut out some of the players -- notably Rudy Valee.

He also put Lloyd's name UNDER the title, causing a lawsuit by Harold. What a mess.

I've read that the shorter version is more liked by viewers.