Cinema Misfits

Drunks are not funny.

The acceptance of this fact has probably cut down on traffic fatalities, enabled families to face a problem once swept under the rug and ignored, and is part of a number of realizations that must be faced before taking that first shaky step on the road to sobriety.

Unfortunately, we’ve paid a heavy cinematic price for this enlightened attitude.  I don’t bemoan the loss of a Foster Brooks or even Dudley Moore in Arthur, but silent comedy drunks, when done by the likes of Chaplin or Keaton, well, it’s like watching some wonderful shitfaced ballet.  The drunk with all his unfortunate comic possibilities is lost to any up and coming comedian, but thankfully, we still have silent movie comedy shorts and features.

Harold Lloyd’s two-reeler High And Dizzy is definitely a *hight* point in silent drunken antics (pun intended.  OK.  OK.   Puns about drinking aren’t funny either, but that’s not because of a shift in attitudes.  It’s just because they’re puns).  Lloyd and a friend get completely blotto and attempt to make their way home, ending up in a hotel where they can sleep off their drunken afternoon binge.  Throw in a sleep-walking love interest and you’ve got 26 minutes of near disasters, perfectly choreographed mayhem, and visual comedy that depends on split second timing that can stop and turn on a dime.

Admittedly, there’s not a great deal that’s new joke-wise.  You get bits where two guys put on the same coat at the same time, each one with an arm in one sleeve.  There’s the always reliable loading lift that arbitrarily goes up and down in a city sidewalk, descending and taking Lloyd out of sight just as a policeman rounds a corner, or rising as an inebriated Lloyd is walking down the street and about to step forward into an empty shaft.  The drunk routine is like a virtuoso piece of music.  The notes never change.  It’s all about the performance.  Complicated, but clean and direct.  Difficult, but appearing effortless.  The drunk has three emotional gears he can shift between.  Happy camaraderie, confusion, and belligerence.  There’s more than enough range to provide variety and pacing for a two-reeler.

Toward the end of High and Dizzy, there’s even a hint of things to come, as a drunken Lloyd pursues his sleep-walking love out onto a building ledge.  The look and basic set-up plays very much like an initial attempt at something that would be fully realized a few years later in Safety Last!

Finally, High and Dizzy even manages to set up and pay off a completely ridiculous and screwy ending, which, while being abrupt and unlikely, is still completely satisfying.

Look.  I know no one wants to hear this, but drunks are funny.  Sometimes.

Just look a Harold Lloyd.