Get Out and Get Under (1920)

Just what I expected

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Two of Harold Lloyd's favourite props are in use here. The first is the car, driven recklessly at speed, the second is the joke of remaining crouched down without realising your hiding place has been removed. You expect something terrible to happen to his car given the fuss he makes over it, but nothing that horrendous befalls it – unless you count being driven by Lloyd as something to be dreaded. He encounters all manner of mishaps as he races to the play being staged by the local amateur dramatics troupe, of which he is a starring member. On a number of occasions he has to jump out of the motor and run back to fetch something that has fallen out of the back. There's nothing unusual about this other than the fact that he doesn't bother stopping the car when he does so… This is one of those early shorts of Harold's that has a boundless energy to match His character's single-mindedness of purpose, and it contains plenty of laughs. One surreal moment occurs however when the car breaks down and Harold is struggling to revive it. Spotting a junkie injecting himself in a doorway, Harold deftly picks the junkie's pocket and uses the contents of his syringe to get the motor running again.

Get Out and Get Under is Harold Lloyd's first film after an exploding accident that caused him to lose a two fingers and a thumb in one of his hands requiring him to wear a prosthetic glove in movies for the rest of his career. This is a very funny short in which Harold is hurrying to get to the theatre for his performance. Lots of hilarious scenes concerning ways to fix his car, his dealings with a kid (Ernie "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison of the original Our Gang) who keeps hanging around while he's working, a dog, some engineers of a train ferry the car accidentally goes on, a parade, a banana peel (no surprise there), a steep hill, a water tower, a fire hydrant, a "road closed" sign, and some motorcycle cops. His leading lady is played by his eventual wife, Mildred Davis. Produced and directed by comedy mastermind Hal Roach. The music I heard in this version was provided by Vince Giordano and his Nighthawks Orchestra. Highly essential viewing for silent movie comedy fans especially those of Harold Lloyd.

A Hal Roach HAROLD LLOYD 2-Reeler.A young man races across town in his beloved new Model T - occasionally having to GET OUT AND GET UNDER to repair it - to keep an appointment with his girlfriend.Harold Lloyd is simply hilarious as the single-minded fellow who will go to any length to protect his Ford car, even giving it a shot of heroin at one point to keep its motor running. Of course, every indignity & frustration is heaped upon him as he makes his determined way towards his destination, making for some wonderful sight gags. As always, his athletic prowess is remarkable, especially considering this film was produced after the accident which cost him half of his right hand.Mildred Davis, who would later marry Harold, plays his girlfriend. Sunshine Sammy Morrison, one of the earliest OUR GANG members, is very funny as the kid with the banana.Vince Giordano and His Nighthawk Orchestra have supplied an excellent antique film score which perfectly complements Harold's antics on the screen.

This is one of Harold Lloyd's most enjoyable short comedies, but if things had turned out differently it might never have been made at all. Get Out and Get Under was one of the first films Lloyd appeared in after recovering from a freak accident that nearly claimed his life. In the fall of 1919, while Harold was posing for publicity photos, actor Nat Clifford innocently handed him what was believed to be a prop bomb; it turned out to be real, and when it exploded both men were badly injured. After a period of convalescence Harold resumed his career, but his still-healing facial scars are visible in his first close-up in this film, and if you watch his right hand carefully you can see that he's wearing a prosthetic device in place of the fingers lost in the explosion. Nat Clifford is here too, as the neighbor at work in his garden.Despite the circumstances under which it was made Get Out and Get Under is a surprisingly cheerful comedy, though much of the humor relies on anxiety and frustration. Harold plays an actor in an amateur theater production trying to get to his show on time, but auto troubles and other problems hinder him every step of the way. After a somewhat measured opening the story builds in momentum and suspense, becoming funnier, loonier, and more surreal as it goes along. One bit involving the creative use of a pup tent is especially memorable. Some of the gags suggest routines identified with Buster Keaton, as when Harold makes a wrong turn and crashes a parade (as Buster would do in Cops) or is sidetracked into a railroad yard and gets doused by one of those water spouts (as Buster did several times). It all goes to show that there was a lot of borrowing and cross-fertilization in silent comedy; Lloyd certainly returned the favor and borrowed from Keaton on other occasions. In any event, our hero ultimately achieves his goal, wins the girl, and delivers a neat pay-off gag in time for the fade-out.Modern viewers might be surprised at the sequence involving a drug addict Harold meets during his adventure; the man is actually shown injecting a substance, presumably cocaine, into his arm, leading to a routine reminiscent of Chaplin's Easy Street but with a surprise twist. (Oddly enough, prolific character actor William Gillespie played the dope fiend in both movies!) This sort of subject matter would become absolutely taboo when enforcement of the Production Code kicked in during the '30s, but jokes about illegal substances and drug addicts crop up fairly often in silent comedy. Also of note here is the presence of Ernie "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison, the first African- American kid in the Our Gang series, who plays the boy who insists on participating while Harold is trying to fix his engine. Sammy has an easygoing charm and naturalness before the cameras that is striking in this sequence.