THE SIN OF HAROLD DIDDLEBOCK (1947) **

Writer/director Preston Sturges had a number of hits under his belt in the mid ‘40s and practically had carte blanche in Hollywood.  He was a big Harold Lloyd fan and decided to make The Sin of Harold Diddlebock as a comeback vehicle for him.  (Lloyd hadn’t appeared in a movie in over nine years at that point.)  It sounded like a match made in Heaven, but unfortunately for comedy fans, their styles never really mesh.  The fact that the laughs are precious and few makes the teaming of the two comedic titans even more disappointing.

The film opens with the classic football game scene from The Freshman.  It’s supposed to do two things simultaneously:  Remind the audience of just how funny Lloyd could be while also acting as cheap stock footage.  Too bad there’s more laughs in the footage from The Freshman than there is in the rest of the movie.

After winning the big football game, Harold gets offered a lowly job with the promise of an eventual promotion.  Fast-forward twenty years and he’s still stuck at the same desk.  When he complains to the boss, he’s promptly fired.  Faced with few options, the usually teetotaling Harold decides to go out and get drunk for the very first time.  He goes on a wild bender and awakens from his drunken stupor surprised to learn he’s now in possession of a failing circus.  Harold then goes off on a frantic search to pawn off the circus on someone else, but of course he gets no takers. 

The best scene is when Harold goes into the bar and the overly eager bartender played by Edgar (Duck Soup) Kennedy mixes him up a customized drink.  Kennedy is quite funny in this scene, and it’s a shame he wasn’t given more to do elsewhere in the picture.  Other bits are played by such familiar faces as Lionel Stander (as a bookie), Margaret Hamilton (as a maid), and Rudy Vallee (as a potential investor).   

The rest of the picture is low on laughs and surprisingly light on the physical comedy Lloyd is known for.  I guess that’s to be expected, given the fact that he was much older and hadn’t appeared in a movie in over a decade, but still.  He doesn’t give a bad performance either.  It’s just that the film itself is rather lackluster.  The big finale where Harold tries to retrieve a lion from the ledge of a tall building is supposed to evoke memories of the iconic Safety Last.  However, it just comes off as a hollow imitation and isn’t very funny to boot. 

The film sorely lacks Sturges’ comedic touch too.  Sturges might’ve meant The Sin of Harold Diddlebock as a love letter to Lloyd, but I think he would’ve been better off allowing Lloyd to direct the picture as their sensibilities don’t quite gel.  Ultimately, its biggest sin is that it just isn’t very funny.   

AKA:  Mad Wednesday.