Fred Newmeyer

Harold Lloyd's first feature-length comedy, directed by Fred Newmeyer for Hal Roach Studios. Lloyd plays a wealthy young idler who joins the Navy to impress his girlfriend's disapproving father. After a shore leave brawl in a foreign port, he finds himself aboard a ship where he must rescue his girl from a villainous maharajah. The film marks Lloyd's transition from two-reel shorts to features, and his "glasses character"—an ambitious, all-American go-getter—was now fully formed. The film's blend of physical comedy and romantic adventure set the template for Lloyd's greatest features to come. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Silent

A Harold Lloyd comedy directed by Fred Newmeyer for Hal Roach Studios. Lloyd plays a young man who works as an extra at a film studio and is mistaken for a society gentleman. Invited to a fancy dinner party, he must bluff his way through high-society etiquette with predictably disastrous results. The film's centerpiece is Lloyd's desperate attempt to ride a horse, a sequence of escalating physical comedy that showcases his trademark blend of daring and Everyman appeal. The film is a classic example of Lloyd's "glasses character" navigating social situations far above his station. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Silent

A Harold Lloyd feature comedy directed by Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor. Lloyd plays a young newlywed whose blissful marriage is complicated when his formidable mother-in-law moves in, followed by her shiftless son and her henpecked husband. The film is structured as a series of domestic comic set pieces, culminating in the famous sequence where Lloyd tries to drive home a carload of groceries while a streetcar full of passengers watches in horror. The film's gentle satire of family life and its expertly staged physical comedy make it one of Lloyd's most charming features. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Silent

A Harold Lloyd short directed by Fred Newmeyer. Lloyd plays a young man who, believing his girlfriend has rejected him for another, decides to end it all. But every suicide attempt fails spectacularly—he can't even jump out a window without landing on a fire escape. The film's masterstroke is a vertiginous sequence on a construction site, where Lloyd dangles from a girder high above the street, a precursor to his famous skyscraper climb in Safety Last! (1923). The film's dark comic premise—suicide as slapstick—is handled with Lloyd's characteristic optimism, as the boy's despair gives way to increasingly inventive physical comedy. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Silent

A hypochondriac millionaire sails to a tropical island resort seeking rest and quiet, only to find himself in the middle of a revolution led by a brutal dictator. Harold Lloyd's feature-length comedy, directed by Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy