Image copyright © by Marcus Trahan

Movie Crazy

(1932)

Harold Lloyd movies often contain plots where mistaken identity is a key. Here he is a star-struck rube who has unknowingly submitted a handsome hunk’s picture to a studio as his own. He is asked to come to California for a screen test, where he soon wreaks havoc on every scene he is in. We’re getting near the end of Lloyd’s career with this film, which was not a success. It’s not that he couldn’t do talkies, some of the few he made were very good, and The Milky Way was a big hit. But with the coming of the Great Depression tastes had changed. It wasn’t until the ‘60s that he was “rediscovered” as the comic genius he was.