The Milky Way (1936)

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

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

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Mild-mannered milk truck driver Harold Lloyd (as Burleigh "Tiger" Sullivan) defends his sister against a drunken middleweight boxing champion, then is mistaken for a fighter. He can't really box, of course, but manager Adolphe Menjou (as Gabby Sloan) makes Mr. Lloyd a famous fighter by fixing fights. "The Milky Way" is neither the best nor the worst of Lloyd's talking pictures. He is given an able director, adequate vehicle, and an extended "comic" support. With his distinctive voice, Lionel Stander (as "Spider" Schultz) makes a strong impression. Some of former box office champion Lloyd's best material involved special effects, and he still looks magical performing "hat tricks" herein. Nevertheless, it's obviously not working as well as Lloyd's classic silent features.***** The Milky Way (2/7/36) Leo McCarey ~ Harold Lloyd, Adolphe Menjou, Lionel Stander, Verree Teasdale

"The Milky Way" follows a typical Lloyd scenario - Harold is unwittingly thrust into becoming something he's not - in this case a mild mannered milkman becomes a boxing champ. As usual for the Lloyd talkies, very little new ground is broken, but in terms of sheer entertainment value, it stacks up nicely against the other films of it's time.Particularly notable here is the outstanding supporting cast, especially Adolphe Menjou as the sleazy manager and his real life wife, Verree Teasdale as the gangster moll, who steals scene- after-scene with rapid-fire sarcastic quips that would be emulated by a generation of film noir "lippy dames" from Gloria Grahame to Lauren Bacall.A comedic precursor to boxing noir - check it out.

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.

Considering this is a sound-era film from Harold Lloyd, I expected it would be significantly worse than his full-length silent films. And, unfortunately, this WAS the case--as the plot and style of the film just didn't do much to exploit the talents of this great comedian. However, while it is a big disappointment in this respect, compared to other movies of the day, this is still a slightly better than average flick--about on par with an Abbott and Costello or Bob Hope movie of the 1940s.The plot is VERY familiar (though not for Lloyd) and involves a milk man who people think has knocked out the middle weight champ on a street corner brawl. However, the knockout was just an accident plus the champ was very drunk. However, this incident hurts the champ's reputation. So, his agent thinks "what better way to make the champ look GOOD than by pretending Harold REALLY is a great fighter after all?". So, a significant amount of the movie is spent convincing him to become a fighter, train and box a lot of set-up matches (though Harold thinks they are NOT rigged). Ultimately, he once again faces the champ but, being a comedy, things don't work out like they should but everyone seems pretty happy in the end anyway.Overall, the acting wasn't bad and it was mildly amusing but it just wasn't anything like earlier Lloyd films. The weakest elements were the rather dismal plot and the fact that the movie lost steam towards the end--my interest, and probably yours, lagged. Not a bad film but not especially memorable either. For a better sound Lloyd film, try MOVIE CRAZY or CAT'S PAW.PS--This was remade as THE KID FROM BROOKLYN starring Danny Kaye. However, the plot has also been used in various forms on TV shows and other movies as well--so this isn't exactly a unique film.PPS--The movie and TV veteran Charles Lane is in the film. I'm sure you'll recognize his very familiar face. As of today (6/07), Mr. Lane is STILL alive and doing quite well at 102 years of age! Good luck, Mr. Lane.