Just Neighbors (1919) ** (out of 4) Harold Lloyd and 'Snub' Pollard play friends and neighbors who are constantly helping one another but their friendship turns out anger when Pollard's chickens break free and end up ruining the garden of Lloyd's wife (Bebe Daniels). Fans of the two stars will certainly want to see this film but sadly it's not quite as funny as some of the previous films that they made together at Rolin.
This film reminds me a lot of the later Laurel and Hardy short, BIG BUSINESS, where a small misunderstanding results in mayhem! Snub Pollard and Harold Lloyd are neighbors who seem to get along just fine.
Harold and Snub are next-door neighbors in the suburbs in this-one reel comedy. It's the only time in his career that Lloyd took a directing credit, which he shared with Frank Terry, even though he frequently did uncredited directing on his movies -- he figured, like Buster Keaton, that his staf could use the credit more.
Without a shadow of a doubt, Harold Lloyd was at the peak of his career in terms of short films. Chaplin only made two films in this year ('A Day's Pleasure' and 'Sunnyside') which could not hold a candle to Lloyd's fast moving short comedies.
There's nothing fancy in "Just Neighbors", but it's still a funny and fast-paced Harold Lloyd comedy that makes good use of the setting and gets quite a bit of material out of it. The trio of Lloyd, Bebe Daniels, and Snub Pollard work well together, with Pollard getting more action than usual.
This is one of Harold Lloyd's early short comedies, and while it's far from great there are hints here and there of the winning formula he was striving for, and that he would achieve in his masterworks of the '20s. Just Neighbors features a sympathetic protagonist we can relate to, a guy who struggles with the familiar frustrations of middle-class existence.
Not one of Harold Lloyd's best short films.IMO, the sight gags were all predictable - which kind of spoils it for me.
This was another early Harold Lloyd comedy short featuring his "glasses" character that I watched on the Kino DVD "The Harold Lloyd Collection". His character that I previously watched as a con man in Are Crooks Dishonest?
