The Milky Way (1936)

Perfect cast and a good story

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

"The Milky Way" is one of the last films that Harold Lloyd made before retiring from acting. Along with Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, Lloyd was one of the great legendary comics of the silent film era. He transitioned OK into sound pictures, but with sound the style of comedy changed from almost all antics to scripts with dialog and other movement. So, he retired early in the sound era. Keaton didn't have a nest egg built up so he continued to work steadily through the 1960s, first doing many shorts that were still used with features in theaters, and then in lesser and lesser roles of feature films. Chaplin was a prolific writer as well, and a successful director and producer. He had a nice nest egg built up, so he was able to live while working on an occasional hit film. Over the next two decades he made just four films, each one a masterpiece.This film is a simple plot with silly scenes of Lloyd's Burleigh Sullivan knocking out prizefighters. That is, supposedly knocking them out. A small supporting cast does a good job. Adolphe Menjou is a showstopper in his scenes. He comes on strong as Gabby Sloan, the questionable fight manager. Some supporting cast standards have nice parts. Lionel Stander is very funny as Spider Schultz. For anyone who hasn't seen Lloyd in a movie, this film is OK. But this doesn't rank anywhere near the classic stuff for which he is most remembered. He is the guy hanging high over a street from the hands of a large clock on a building. That 1923 film, "Safety Last," is among his classics.

This entertaining film deals with a timid milkman named Burleigh Sullivan (the name of the lead character, "Burleigh" is an inside joke since it sounds like "burly" which means 'strongly and heavily built, husky' which the character is not) . Sullivan (Harold Lloyd), somehow knocks out a boxing champ in a brawl. The newspapers get hold of the story and photographers even catch Burleigh knock out Speed again . Speed's crooked manager (Adolphe Menjou) decides to turn Burleigh into a boxer . Burleigh doesn't realize that all of his opponents have been asked to take a dive. Thinking he really is a great boxer , Burleigh develops a swelled head which puts a crimp in his relationship with pretty girl called Polly Pringle (Dorothy Wilson) . He may finally get his comeuppance when he challenges fighter Speed (William Gargan) for the title. So the sleazy manager decides to substitute him with Sullivan , who is now groomed for stardom. Naive Burleigh does everything the crook says, only to be blamed when it all explodes in their faces big time. This light-hearted comedy and enjoyable story is basically a showcase for the many talents of Lloyd , as a frail man mistaken for a potential champion and probably to be Harold's last classic picture . The yarn is appropriate , but no equal to Lloyd previous silent productions. Amusing acting by Harold Lloyd as a shy milkman Burleigh Sullivan who accidentally knocks out drunken Speed McFarlane, a champion boxer who was flirting with Burleigh's sister . Harold plays a milque-toast weak man , a funny and totally extroverted Lloyd who thinks he really won all those fights that he was signed up by crooked manager Adolphe Menjou who shows to have a big flair for slapstick comedy . Features great support cast such as Helen Mack , William Gargan and Lionel Stander will repeat his role from this original version ten years later and film debut of Anthony Quinn. Producer Samuel Goldwyn bought the rights for the property in the mid-1940s for his remake The kid of Brooklyn (1946), as well as the original negative and almost all existing prints, and destroyed them. The ending struggle scenes for the championship is hysterically fun , an adequate material for Harold LLoyd's physical skills . Beautifully filmed in black and white cinematography as well as atmospheric musical score . It proved to be a very profitable film , being this original rendition with Lloyd and McCarey crisper and funnier than subsequent retelling . The motion picture was professionally directed by Leo McCarey ; however , when director was in the hospital, Norman Z. McLeod directed some of the scenes . The film is definitely for the lighthearted.This flick has been adapted several times , as firstly the original play opened at the Cort Theatre in New York on 8 May 1934 and closed in July 1934 after 63 performances , titled the Milky Way (1934) , written by Lynn Root and Harry Clork , directed by William W. Schorr with a cast formed by : John Brown, Brian Donlevy (as "Speed McFarland"), Leo Donnelly (as "Gabby Sloan") , Edward Emerson, William Foran, Gladys George (as "Anne Westey"), Emily Lowry, Hugh O'Connell (as "Burleigh Sullivan") . And reworked a decade later by Samuel Goldwyn as The kid from Brooklyn (1946) , it even features some of the same supporting characters the Lloyd version . The big difference is the addition of the songs , the players are : Danny Kaye as Burleigh Sullivan, Virginia Mayo as Polly Pringle , Vera-Ellen as Susie Sullivan , Steve Cochran as Speed McFarlane , Eve Arden as Ann Westley , Walter Abel as Gabby Sloan , Lionel Stander as Spider Schultz . Furthermore , The Hedda Hopper Show - This Is Hollywood" broadcast a 30 minute radio adaptation of the movie on March 22, 1947 with Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo reprising their film roles. And finally a special version titled ¨The Calcium kid¨ (2004) starred by Orlando Bloom , Michael Lerner , Billie Pipper , David Kelly ,in which an English bachelor milkman, 'accidentally' knocks down his boxing club's champion as stand-in sparring partner.

Overall, this is entertaining even if it is very dated in a Harold Lloyd-kind of way, meaning a typical role for him where he's the wimpy-but -brave hero. In this story, Harold is "Burleigh Sullivan," the shy milkman who winds up - even though no clue about boxing - as a professional fighting for the middleweight championship of the world! Ridiculous? Yes, but that was Lloyd and his films: slapstick lunacy like Keaton, Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, etc.Along the way to his fame and glory in the ring, Harold picks up a serious girlfriend (the very wholesome and attractive Dorothy Wilson as "Polly Pringle") and so a little romance is part of the story.Lloyd provides a lot of laughs but he isn't the only one. Helen Mack has a lot of wisecracking lines as Burleigh's younger sister, "Mae." Also, con-man/fight manager "Honest Gabby Sloan" (Adolph Menjou) gets in his share of funny and serious lines. The three of them, plus some other mentally-deficient boxers, all contribute humor.In all, it's a sweet-tempered film with a lot of charm. True, some of the humor is too dated and stupid but the "hits" far outnumber the "misses" in the comedy department.

I taped this movie when it was shown on TCM recently and I've rewatched it several times since, enjoying it more with each viewing. It's a hilarious and energetic movie, and the editing, framing, and compositions of characters are always fresh, funny, and cliché-free. I especially like how the film echoes Burleigh's "ducking" abilities by cleverly using "ducking" techniques, or ellipses, in various ways: in telling the story, by leaving out certain scenes and revealing them later; and even in framing (in one scene Adolph Menjou plays a scene hidden behind a tree branch, "ducking out" of the frame). This film is as good as The Awful Truth and to me has the same strange beauty of that wonderful film.