Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Ameriatch One of the best films i have seen

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

Caryl It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Richard Chatten In what is probably his best talkie, Harold Lloyd is backed by a terrific supporting cast towards whom he is generous both in screen time (there are a remarkable number of stretches when he's offscreen for quite a while) and in awarding laughs. Looking remarkably unchanged from his silent films he's still graceful on his feet as well as with dialogue with the assistance of smooth direction, photography and editing by (respectively) Leo McCarey, Alfred Gilks & LeRoy Stone. It's also blessed with a script (based on a 1934 Broadway play) liberally sprinkled throughout with funny lines as well as well-placed and often almost subliminal sight gags inclined to pop up unexpectedly when you think the comedy has momentarily run its course. SPOILER COMING: After ambling along for 80 minutes the climactic confrontation in the boxing ring to which it has been building is over surprisingly quickly, and the film itself ends abruptly.It's good to see Adolphe Menjou appearing alongside his elegant wife Verree Teasdale, who gets the lionesse's share of the best lines. In this largely testosterone-fuelled context (as personified by William Gargan & Lionel Stander as a pair of bruisers called 'Speed' and 'Spider') Ms Teasdale and especially Majorie Gateson as Mrs E. Winthrop Lemoyne both cut enjoyably incongruous figures; with Helen Mack & Dorothy Wilson making charming (and funny) young heroines.It's bad enough that Sam Goldwyn had the temerity to remake this just ten years later with Danny Kaye (which presumably accounts for why it's taken me so long for me to catch up with it; I don't think it's ever been on British television - although the remake has), but Goldwyn then added injury to insult by buying up the original negative and destroying all the available prints. Fortunately for posterity, Lloyd looked after his films and still had his own nitrate original.

Michael Morrison Turner Classic Movies often has a Harold Lloyd marathon, and sometimes Lloyd's daughter is on hand with an introduction. She and TCM have apparently brought a multitude of new fans to him, and he deserves every one.In "The Milky Way" Harold Lloyd outdoes even himself, and that is (as it is intended) high praise.Far and away better than the remake with the execrable Danny Kaye, this movie has a terrific cast and good script. Helen Mack, one of my particular favorites, gets a rare chance to shine, and she grabs that chance and really does shine in a marvelous performance. Adolphe Menjou, another of my favorites, is just great, nicely underplaying a character role. Actually, everyone seems to be just about perfect in their roles.Add good directing, good writing, and the whole experience is thoroughly enjoyable.You don't have to wait for TCM to bring it around: There is a version at YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0x128sbn74

Cristi_Ciopron A comedy with Lloyd, Menjou, Verree Teasdale, Helen Mack, W. Gargan, directed by a distinguished craftsman. Menjou is at his best, very believable as a dishonest manager.It is slapstick with a reek of folksy artfulness, but the thoughtful plot also has this neat dramatic dimension, required by Lloyd's style, which elicited, entailed this dramatic sharpness; his character was unusual and surprising among the peers, with unexpected means, and skillful in his own way, a naughty wag, determined not to be a victim, which makes the role so truth-like and folksy, with a certain folk realism, slyness and cleverness, a survivor, not at all helpless or clueless, he has his own merry pranks. The lead's slapstick was extravagant (the parades with bagpipes, the horses, already the lion, the flying hat) and baroque, compared to Keaton's.The protagonist is a proletarian. His _naivetés proceed mainly from inexperience (the puddle, the sportive delusions), not from imbecility, he has a gleam of cleverness. His story synthesizes two lines of realism, a modern popular one, and a folkloric one, reminding of the legendary jesters, and the movie's outlook needs to be explained by both of them, plus the extravagant slapstick, whether satirical (the lion, the hat, the bagpipes: the milkman's delusions of glamor …), or not. The milkman is decent and kind (and reasonably gullible in a milieu unusual for him), but not an idealist (this would be a type of lead unknown to the school of folkloric humor).Of the three ladies, Helen Mack plays the milkman's sister, Verree Teasdale the heartless blonde (Miss Westley).Menjou gives one of his best performances as the unprincipled, scheming and shrewd manager, he has an astounding ease.W. Gargan, who is very likable and handsome, plays Speed, Burleigh's future brother-in-law.So, a work of thoughtful and crafty comedy; the engine is the storyline, very polished. Some of the characters are glamorous (Miss Westley, the manager, Speed), others not (the sister and the girlfriend); there is a blockhead, Spider, but even him is the generic blockhead of the '30s comedies, not a slapstick one. Lloyd had this possibility of folk drama, because there is something dramatic in his character's struggle to survive. The movie begins with his humiliations, and he finds the way to upstage them all, he finds a makeshift. His Burleigh is sometimes clumsy, but neither naive, nor humble, he vanquishes the wealthier and their routine. He's sly.

MARIO GAUCI This is one of two latter-day Harold Lloyd vehicles directed by award-winning comedy experts - the other being his swansong, THE SIN OF HAROLD DIDDLEBOCK (1947), written and directed by Preston Sturges (with which I hope to re-acquaint myself later on in the month via a Cable TV recording, in direct anticipation of 3 more of Sturges' own films I own on DVD).I've watched all but a couple of Lloyd's Talkies (WELCOME DANGER [1929] and PROFESSOR BEWARE [1938]): while his transition to the new medium was certainly not as disastrous as Buster Keaton's, I still feel that Lloyd's brand of comedy wasn't particularly suited to Sound; as a matter of fact, the film depends a good deal on dialogue for laughs - and most of the best lines are not even delivered by the star! McCarey himself (reportedly, he fell ill during production of THE MILKY WAY and some scenes were actually directed by Norman Z. McLeod) had been a practitioner of Silent comedies for Laurel & Hardy but, when Sound came in, proceeded to work with practically all the major Talkie star comedians - Eddie Cantor, The Marx Bros., W.C. Fields, Mae West, and even Cary Grant. In any case, the milkman-turned-boxer plot line provides plenty of uproarious situations - and it was eventually revamped as a musical vehicle for Danny Kaye called THE KID FROM BROOKLYN (1946; I watched this as a kid and, if I have the time, I may check it out again as well) which, incidentally, was directed by Norman Z. McLeod!Still, like I said, Lloyd is somewhat upstaged by his fellow actors in this one: Adolphe Menjou as the smart boxing manager (of two rival prizefighters!) and Lionel Stander as his burly but dim-witted hood/assistant; but the women are strong characters as well, particularly Verree Teasdale as Menjou's cynical girl (incidentally, the couple were married in real-life!) and Helen Mack as Lloyd's brave but apprehensive younger sister (conveniently engaged off by Menjou to the current boxing champ - whom Lloyd had ostensibly knocked out in a fit of rage and who would like to get his prestige back). The ending, however, is a bit abrupt - especially since the women (including Lloyd's love interest, played by Dorothy Wilson) are kind of neglected...as is a newborn pony which has followed Lloyd into the boxing arena! Unfortunately, I experienced some freezing issues around the 27-minute mark but, when I played the scene back, the glitch was thankfully not repeated.P.S. According to the IMDb, there are at least 11 movies made between 1917 and 2006 entitled THE MILKY WAY but, apart from the Lloyd/McCarey picture, the most notable are certainly the Oscar-winning 1940 animated short and Luis Bunuel's wickedly funny 1969 treatise on Catholic dogma.