Crazy Wednesday

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Movie
German title Crazy Wednesday
Original title The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947),
Mad Wednesday (1950)
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1947
length 1947: 89 minutes,
1950: 76 minutes
Rod
Director Preston Sturges
script Preston Sturges
production Preston Sturges,
Howard Hughes
music Werner R. Heymann
camera Robert Pittack
cut Thomas Neff (1947),
Stuart Gilmore (1950)
occupation

Crazy Wednesday is a 1947 American comedy film directed by Preston Sturges . In his last film role, silent film legend Harold Lloyd played the lead role of Harold Diddlebock.

action

Crazy Wednesday begins with old scenes from the Harold Lloyd silent film The Sports Student : In 1923, Harold Diddlebock is the acclaimed hero of his American football team in college . In a frenzy of victory, Harold accepts an offer from the businessman Waggleberry to work for him. Waggleberry gives him a simple, boring position as an accountant, so that - as the businessman jovially puts it - Harold's rise to the top will then be all the more glamorous. In 1945, Harold - now a rather colorless and hesitant middle-aged gentleman - is still stuck in the same position. One Wednesday he is called to his office by Waggleberry and fired because he has lacked enthusiasm for work in recent years. For his 22 years with the company, Harold receives a gold watch and $ 2,946.12 in savings. Harold gives his adored colleague Miss Otis an engagement ring as a farewell. Harold had proposed marriage to all six of Miss Otis' older sisters over the years when they worked at Waggleberry, but his shyness always failed.

Harold wanders aimlessly and sadly through the streets, where he is noticed by the swindler and gambler Wormy, who wants to beg money from Harold. To get hold of Harold's money, he invites him to a bar for a drink. There Harold tells the barman Jake that he has never touched a drop of alcohol before in his life. Jake enthusiastically constructs a drink especially for Harold's first sip of alcohol that he baptizes with the name Diddlebock . After just a few sips of Diddlebock , the depression of the now completely drunk Harold is over. He can be lavishly furnished with a cowboy wardrobe and in a horse race he bets $ 1,000 on an outsider horse, which wins and Harold makes a small fortune.

After a wild day and a half of partying, Harold wakes up hungover on the sofa of his strict, widowed sister Flora. A carriage and driver Algernon McNiff, whose services he had acquired while drinking alcohol, are already waiting for him on the street. A little later, Harold learns from Wormy that he, too, had bought the insolvent circus from Wild Bill Hickock in a frenzy. Due to the poor financial situation, the animals are poorly fed and extremely aggressive, and the creditors will soon be on Harold's neck. So he wants to get rid of the circus as quickly as possible. Harold marches through Wall Street with the lion Jackie and causes panic everywhere. He explains to the extremely wealthy bankers that they should buy his circus and give free shows for children there to polish up their bad reputation. At Harold's side is Wormy, who took Diddlebock drinks for the bankers who were difficult to convince. However, the lion breaks free and climbs along the high-rise facades. Harold and Wormy narrowly escape death in their attempts to recapture the lion in the lofty heights.

Harold, Wormy and the Lion are thrown in prison for their troublemaking. Miss Otis appears unexpectedly and pays the bail . Meanwhile, numerous bankers persuade Harold to sell them the circus. To calm him down, Harold receives a Diddlebock from the barman Jack , which is followed by another intoxication for a day and a half. Harold wakes up next to Miss Otis in the carriage and can't remember anything. Miss Otis tells him that the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus made the highest bid of $ 175,000 because they feared free performances. Harold, this time in a managerial position, is also back at Waggleberry. Finally, Miss Otis has to remind Harold that he married her.

background

The director and screenwriter Preston Sturges had risen to become one of Hollywood's most famous directors with screwball comedies since the early 1940s . In 1944 he had separated from Paramount Pictures , his previous film studio, and together with Howard Hughes founded the production company California Pictures Corporation . While Hughes provided the funding, Sturges was given more creative freedom than before at Paramount Pictures and also acted as a producer on his films. Sturges wrote the script for The Sin of Harold Diddlebock specifically to lure the famous silent film comedian Harold Lloyd out of his retirement - Lloyd's last film, the comedy The Hunted Professor (1938), was almost ten years ago. Sturges had long been an admirer of Lloyd's silent comedies, including Der Sportstudent , whose closing scenes are at the beginning of The Sin of Harold Diddlebock .

The mood between Sturges and Lloyd was initially friendly. Sturges wrote the scene with the lion on the skyscraper especially to follow Lloyd's famous skyscraper climbs in silent films like Skyscraper, of all things! alluding to. However, the mood changed during the filming (1946), creative differences emerged, both were considered strong personalities and masters of comedy. Lloyd had always had an influence behind the camera in his silent films and preferred slapstick and visual gags, while Sturges paid attention to sharp and fast dialogues. Sometimes each scene was shot twice: once as Lloyd wanted it, once as Sturges wanted it. In the end, both of them were rather dissatisfied with the finished film, which exceeded its planned budget by USD 600,000 and cost around USD 2 million - a high sum for a film at the time.

At the box office, The Sin of Harold Diddlebock was so unsuccessful in 1947 that Howard Hughes pulled him out of circulation after a short time. Hughes revised the film over a period of three years, cutting many scenes and also remaking some. In the end, the Hughes version was around 13 minutes shorter than the original version at 76 minutes. In addition, Hughes was dissatisfied with the film title The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (a reference by Sturges to the film The Sin of Madelon Claudet ) because he thought it was too long and bulky. When it was re-released in 1950, the film was given the shorter title Mad Wednesday . However, the version released by Hughes was also a box office failure. For Frances Ramsden (1920-2000), Lloyd's Leading Lady , The Sin of Harold Diddlebock was her first and only film. She was a former model with no acting experience and was temporarily in a relationship with Sturges, which gave her the role.

For Preston Sturges, who had been spoiled for success so far, The Sin of Harold Diddlebock was the first failure of his career, only a short time later his collaboration with Howard Hughes ended. This was the beginning of the end for Sturges, his last three films up to 1955 were all flops. For Harold Lloyd, The Sin of Harold Diddlebock was the last film. Lloyd, who was already very wealthy in his mid-fifties, saw his time as a film star as over and drew the consequence of the failure to withdraw from the active film business.

Reviews

When it was released, Crazy Wednesday was received only mixed by critics, in addition to its commercial failure. Variety gave a positive assessment . Neither Harold Lloyd's screen character nor his comedy have changed since the silent film era: "Benefiting from the excellent dialogues from Sturge's hand, Lloyd shows himself in his role in his usual funny state." The high-rise scene in which he pulls on the rope the city is particularly outstanding. The New York Times wrote when the film was republished in the January 25, 1951 issue that the film was an "unbelievable business", a mixture of "ingenious comedian spirit and lethargy". Remarkably funny moments in the film would be followed by embarrassing dry spells. The New York Times praised Lloyd and his sidekick actor Jimmy Colin. "Although Mr. Lloyd lights up big on Mad Wednesday and the rest of the cast are exemplary too, in the end the movie mostly relies on Mr. Sturges' ingenuity and he's, unfortunately, too inconsistent to be entirely satisfactory."

To this day, the film has received very different assessments from the critics, with the positive votes tending to predominate. Dave Kehr called the film a “major rediscovery” in its original version: “a loving and kind essay on Lloyd's screen character, laced with astute observations about middle age. In a way, it's Lloyd's spotlight , a brave look back, with humor and regret, at an entire career. ”The US film critic Dennis Schwartz was somewhat more critical of the fact that the joke in the film feels flat and is plagued by failures. Nevertheless, there is “still a sense of tragedy in the film that an honorable middle-aged man loses his job.” The film is presented in a sympathetic manner and is saved by a few moments of inspired comedy. The lexicon of international film was also satisfied with Lloyd's swan song with the distance of a few decades :

“Preston Sturges' homage to and with Harold Lloyd is easier for the layman than the friend of Lloyd's work because of the many sequences that are diametrically opposed to Lloyd's humor , but as a largely successful grotesque, everyone should be able to appreciate it with great pleasure. In any case, hardly a comedian career has found a better finale. "

Awards

Harold Lloyd was nominated for Best Actor - Musical / Comedy at the 1951 Golden Globe Awards . The film was also in competition at the 1951 Cannes International Film Festival .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. The Sin of Harold Diddlebock at Turner Classic Movies
  2. The Sin of Harold Diddlebock at Allmovie
  3. The Sin of Harold Diddlebock at Turner Classic Movies
  4. The Sin of Harold Diddlebock at Turner Classic Movies
  5. ^ Frances Ramsden at the Internet Movie Database. Retrieved April 4, 2020 .
  6. The Sin of Harold Diddlebock at Turner Classic Movies
  7. The Sin of Harold Diddlebock at Variety
  8. The Sin of Harold Diddlebock in the New York Times
  9. see rating of 89% at Rotten Tomatoes
  10. The Sin of Harold Diddlebock at Chicago Reader
  11. Sin of Harold Diddlebock with Dennis Schwartz
  12. Crazy Wednesday. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed August 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used