Instant Favorite.

Absolutely the worst movie.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

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

This movie is billed as a comedy but the story gives little cause for laughter. Instead the movie dramatizes the plight of workers who labor for years in utter obscurity, buried alive in huge bureaucracies where they labor and are then discarded like a worthless commodity. That is not funny, even if it's Harold Loyd acting the role and Preston Sturges as the director. At first the movie seems to be little more than a cheap two-reeler, almost amateurish in its production. But after a while it becomes apparent that the movie contains a subliminal message relating to the human condition and how people have to become almost crazy in order to break through the shackles that smother their individuality and creativity. This theme does not inspire laughter. Indeed it is baffling why this movie was made at all.

An interesting if ultimately unsuccessful combination of two clashing comedy styles (overseen by humorless mogul Howard Hughes no less), this film turned out to be Harold Lloyd's swan-song - and, as such, it ended on a somewhat positive note (even though the film was made during Sturges' period of decline).It opens with a reprise of the climactic football game from one of Lloyd's greatest successes, THE FRESHMAN (1925), eventually bringing that same character (albeit renamed!) up to date. Still, in the end, the film is more Sturges than Lloyd: even if the star plays one of his trademark roles of a patsy (though not without the occasional display of ingenuity), there is little of the star's characteristic slapstick here. Instead, the comedy is in Sturges' typical frantic (and, mainly, dialogue-driven) style - with which Lloyd isn't entirely comfortable; the film also features Sturges' stock company of character players in full swing. That said, it's climaxed by yet another of the star comedian's thrilling set-pieces which finds him overhanging from a building-ledge - hampered this time around by a myopic Jimmy Conlin and an understandably disgruntled circus lion! While a disappointing whole (it was re-issued in 1950 in a shortened version renamed MAD Wednesday), the film does contain a number of undeniable gems: his romantic attachment to every female member of one particular family (all of whom happen to work for the same firm over a 20-year period); his first encounter with Conlin, with the two of them exchanging wise sayings (the optimistic Lloyd had kept a handful nailed to the wall behind him at his former workplace) in order to explain their current dejected state-of-mind; and, best of all, the unforgettable scene in which Lloyd takes his first alcoholic beverage (an impromptu concoction by bartender Edgar Kennedy and which he names "The Diddlebock") that invariably provokes an unexpected yet hilarious reaction.

I've watched movies from every era, of every genre; my favorites are comedy and SF. In the comedy genre, the only thing I can say about this movie is an unreserved THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE, ALL-TIME MOST HILARIOUS MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE.....and I've had fifty-eight years of life and experience to form that opinion in. I have two recommendations to make: 1: If you need a good, solid emotional pick-me-up, this is the movie to watch (my wife suffers from severe bouts of depression; in the midst of one of her worst bouts, this movie had her on the floor, laughing hysterically)---with one proviso: 2:DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE if you've just had abdominal surgery; it could kill you---literally.

Preston Sturgess's funniest film and also Harold Lloyd's. Includes clip from Lloyd's silent 20's film, "The Freshman" which includes famous clip of slapstick football game which Marx Brothers must have copied. "The Freshman" also must have influenced Adam Sandler's "The Waterboy". Story of a waterboy at football game who gets into the game, saves the day unexpectedly, and then is hired as an accountant at a bank by an an enthusiastic boss who forgets all about him. After having lost his all his money -- in his own bank -- during the Depression, and remaining in the same dead end job for 20 years, he gets fired by his boss who barely remembers him and gives up on marrying the girl of his dreams who works with him. He then has his first drink (his "sin") and it changes his life in wild ways that even call to mind the film, "Run, Lola, Run". Also calls to mind movies satirizing office work like "Haiku Tunnel" and "Office Space." (1999). Side splitting scenes with real circus animals, including one on a skyscraper ledge with an adorable lion.