Well, okay, I have heard of Harold Lloyd, I know he was a comedian during the silent era, like Chaplin and Ben Turpin and Buster Keaton...like most people, I've seen the clip from Safety First where he's hanging from the face of the clock...and that's pretty much the limit of my exposure to Harold Lloyd.

Until a night not so long ago...when the AGVAPSNBA* was in session, the Bird Lady and the Squirrel Lady and I were watching movies, with much pizza and beer and cookie involvement. Our theme that night was black and white comedies; I chose Bringing Up Baby, the Squirrel Lady brought To Be Or Not To Be, and the Bird Lady brought a box of Harold Lloyd movies that she and her excellent hubs had just gotten.

So in between the longer movies, and frantic phone calls from Mr. Otter who was across the country and had lost his wallet, we watched two of these short silent films, Ask Father and An Eastern Westerner.

Now, I have to say, I have seen quite a few silent films. Many of them were quite good, and in fact I dearly love the version of The Sea Hawk that GATADD taped for me, since it's the only time they did the right thing by that wonderful book.

But given a choice, silent films are just not my favorite. Especially comedies, which tend to be of the Three Stooges whack-someone-in-the-face-and-it's-funny type.

And I was so pleasantly surprised. Folks, your grandparents could probably have told you this, but here's the Otter, a source you can trust, and The Otter says: Harold Lloyd was FUNNY. Really really funny. These movies were short (13 and 23 minutes) and HILARIOUS.

Lloyd is not only wonderful at physical comedy, but his facial expressions are priceless. These films were well written, the humor had a lot of depth to it, and many unexpected things happened, which just made them funnier. The pacing was good, the other actors knew their stuff, they were a joy to watch.

Excuse me while I run out to my local purveyor of dvds to buy the huge expensive boxed set of all of Lloyd's work...settle down on the couch, we'll watch them together...

*All Girls Video and Pizza Sleepover, No Boys Allowed