Mildred Davis Movies
Harold Lloyd's leading lady in his best-remembered silent comedy, the thrilling Safely Last (1923), Mildred Davis became Mrs. Lloyd offscreen as well and left the screen in 1927 to raise their family. As a youngster, Davis had appeared in Marriage à la Carte (1916) opposite Bryant Washburn but then more or less disappeared. Reportedly, producer Hal Roach thought of her when his star comic, Lloyd, needed a replacement for the departing Bebe Daniels and a search commenced. She was found attending high school in Tacoma, WA, and the rest, as they say, is history. Blonde and doll-like, Davis became Lloyd's leading lady in all his shorts and feature comedies, up to and including Safety Last (1923). They married on February 10, 1923, and although Davis was loath to leave films, Lloyd more or less demanded that she do so. The comic did secure her a role in Too Many Crooks (1927), a comedy for Paramount, but it proved her cinematic swan song. Mildred Davis died from the aftereffects of a stroke. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1962
Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy is a compilation film of the famed silent-comedy star's funniest screen scenes, lovingly assembled by Harold Lloyd himself. The film spotlights choice moments from such Lloyd silent features as Safety Last (1923), Why Worry (1923), Hot Water (1924), Girl Shy (1924) and The Kid Brother (1924). Also included are several sequences from Lloyd's talking pictures: The train chase from Professor Beware (1938), the magician's coat routine from Movie Crazy (1932), and the climb down the side of a building from Feet First (1930). Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy was actually finished two years before its release, but Lloyd, ever the perfectionist, extensively previewed the film to gauge audience reaction. World of Comedy was reasonably successful, so Lloyd followed up with another compilation, Harold Lloyd's Funny Side of Life (1963), which consisted mostly of footage from the comedian's most popular silent feature, The Freshman (1925). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1923
After Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, the silent film era's "third genius" was Harold Lloyd, who stars in this Horatio Alger-style story of an average country boy trying to make good in the big city. The Boy (Lloyd) leaves his sweetheart, The Girl (Mildred Davis, later the real-life Mrs. Lloyd) in Great Bend while he pursues his fortune in a teeming metropolis. The Boy lands a job as a clerk at a fabric counter of DeVore's, a huge department store, but he lies in his letters home to his beloved, pretending to be the store's manager and spending his earnings on lavish gifts. The Boy's roommate, The Pal (Bill Strother) makes money as a "human fly," performing attention-getting stunts. Promised $1,000 by DeVore's real manager if he can devise a publicity gimmick, The Boy convinces his friend to climb the 12-story establishment and split the winnings with him. On the day of the event, however, The Pal is busy dodging The Law (Noah Young), forcing The Boy to make the arduous climb solo. Dodging a variety of obstacles, The Boy climbs higher and higher, eventually dangling from the store's clock tower, in the film's most memorable image. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, (more)
- 1923
Clinging to one's youth was considered a fault in the 1920s, as evidenced by this domestic drama. Even though lawyer Hugh Manners (Tully Marshall) is more than happy to allow himself to get old, his wife, who has just turned forty (Myrtle Steadman), certainly has no intention of acting her age (at least, according to the conventions of the day). She calls her husband a "slowpoke" and files for divorce. Then she takes up with Preston Ducayne (Stuart Holmes), a gambler who wants to get his hands on the Manners fortune. The couple's daughter Hazel (Mildred Davis) comes home to find her family in turmoil. She tries to save her mother from scandal, but when Ducayne is murdered, all bets are off. Hazel's fiancé, Robert Belmar (Kenneth Harlan), assumes the guilt, and Manners represents him. The confession of Olga Kazanoff, Ducayne's mistress (Maude George), gets everybody off the hook. After this ordeal, Mrs. Manners decides life in the slow lane isn't so bad after all and reunites with her husband. Incidentally, although Mildred Davis received good notices for her work in this film, she had recently become Mrs. Harold Lloyd, and retired from the screen. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kenneth Harlan, Mildred Davis, (more)
- 1922
Because it was sandwiched between the exceptional comedies Grandma's Boy and Safety Last, Doctor Jack is one of Harold Lloyd's lesser-known features. Nevertheless, it's quite charming and actually did even better at the box office than Grandma's Boy, which was Lloyd's first true feature. Doctor Jack (Lloyd) is a nice young country doctor who prefers to use common sense and his sunny personality to effect cures instead of resorting to pills and potions. His most challenging case comes when a rich father (John T. Prince) asks him to look after his daughter (Mildred Davis, who, a few months after this film's release, would become Mrs. Harold Lloyd). The girl is being cared for by Dr. Ludwig von Saulsburg (Eric Mayne), who claims to be an eminent specialist. He keeps her in a darkened room and has prescribed her various medications. It takes Dr. Jack only a moment to figure out there is nothing wrong with the girl that a little sunshine and excitement won't cure. Von Saulsburg, who has been making a comfortable living off of the girl's family, is horrified by the country doctor's approach; to make matters worse, the girl falls in love with Dr. Jack. Their romance gets Dr. Jack thrown out of the house, but he gets back in the family's good graces by a little trick: Disguised as a lunatic, he terrorizes the household, then dressed as himself, he comes to the rescue. Along the way he makes a fool of the eminent Dr. Von Saulsburg. The excitement proves that the girl is perfectly healthy -- and ready to become Dr. Jack's wife. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, (more)
- 1922
This rollicking comedy is Harold Lloyd's second feature film and like the first, A Sailor-Made Man was originally conceived of as a short film. During the shooting, Lloyd and long-time collaborator Hal Roach insisted on continually developing his character and moving beyond pure gags into a real story. $100,000 and five reels later the film was ready to preview. Because the entire work was so funny and well-done, it was decided to leave it intact and market it as a feature film. Following the success of Grandma's Boy, Lloyd abandoned short films in favor of full length films. The story centers on Sonny, a flighty young boy who is required to join the rest of the men in his small town on a manhunt for a murderer. Totally frightened by the prospect of finding the killer, Sonny heads for the safety of his grandmother's home. She inspires the cowering youth with a stirring tale about her formerly timorous husband who went to a mysterious old witch for the courage to fight in the Civil War. The old wise woman gave him a magical Zuni charm which made Sonny's grandfather invincible. Armed with his amulet, the newly courageous grandfather rushed out to steal some important Yankee plans. The story enraptures the wide-eyed Sonny. Suddenly grandmother hands him the very amulet that made her husband a hero. Not realizing that the bauble is really only a handle from one of grandma's umbrella's, the emboldened Sonny charges off to single-handedly save the town from the fugitive villain. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, (more)
- 1921
Although he didn't realize it at the time, this was Harold Lloyd's last two-reeler (the next film, A Sailor-Made Man, would start off as a tworeeler but grow into four). It begins as an office romance, with Harold in love with a girl (Mildred Davis) who works next door to his place of employment. Her boss, an osteopath, is about to let her go since he has no patients. Harold saves her job by taking an acrobat (Mark Jones) out for a stroll -- the acrobat fakes a fall and Harold, after "fixing" him, hands out the osteopath's business cards. After saving his girl's job, Harold walks in on her embracing another man (Roy Brooks) -- what Harold doesn't know is that the man is her brother, a newly ordained minister. Devastated, Harold decides to commit suicide. From that moment on, the rest of the film is a Lloyd tour de force in which he tries several ways to off himself, but can't quite get the job done. Finally, he sets a gun up so he will be shot when the office door is opened. Then he blindfolds himself. A light bulb bursts, convincing him that he is dead, just as his chair slides onto a beam from the construction going on next door. Harold is suspended in mid-air, and once he realizes the precarious position he is in, all thoughts of suicide fly out the window. He must navigate hot rivets and loose beams and find his way to safety at the bottom of the partially constructed building. When he reaches the ground he discovers his misunderstanding regarding his girl. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1921
Although this comedy was hailed as Harold Lloyd's first feature, at four reels, it's really more of a glorified short. It was originally meant to be a two-reeler (the previous film, Never Weaken, was considered an anomaly at three reels), but Lloyd and his crew wound up with too many good gags and decided to leave them all in. Unlike Lloyd's subsequent films, this picture is light on characterization and relies more on its wild gags than on the star's winning personality. Lloyd plays an insufferable rich young man. The father of his sweetheart (Mildred Davis) does not approve of him, and insists that he must do something with his life if he is to be worthy of the girl. Harold's answer is to join the Navy. His dream of being an admiral contrasts sharply with reality, where he is at the bottom of the pecking order. His ship lands on the coast of a fictional Middle Eastern country, Khaipura-Bhandanna. The girl and her father have also sailed there and a wicked Maharaja (Dick Sutherland) kidnaps the girl from her father's yacht. It is up to Harold to rescue her, which he does with his famed athletic skills and a lot of humor. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, (more)
- 1921
Harold Lloyd and Mildred Davis play a young married couple (two years later, they became a real-life married couple). So far, all they know about parenthood is how to sneak bootleg liquor home in a baby carriage. That changes quickly when the girl's brother (Noah Young) leaves them with his two youngsters (Jackie Morgan and Jackie Edwards) for an overnight visit. The four-year-old does what four-year-olds do best -- he gets into everything from sawing a chair leg to nailing Harold's shoes to the floor to finding fireworks. The infant is hungry and crying, and Harold must figure out how to fill a baby bottle with milk. The nightmare (hellish for the couple, hilarious for the viewer) is capped when the wife glowingly reveals that she is expecting. Not among the best of Lloyd's two-reelers, but funny nevertheless. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1920
Harold Lloyd runs afoul of some bootleg hootch in this two-reel comedy. When his friend (Roy Brooks) shows him a little distillery he has hidden away in his office, Harold is fascinated. But while they're admiring one of the bottles, the cork pops out and the liquor begins to run over. The two men have no choice but to drink it, of course. Harold and his pal then embark on a number of wild, drunken adventures which eventually lead them up to the ledge of a skyscraper. Things get really interesting when Harold encounters a pretty sleepwalker (Mildred Davis) hundreds of feet above the sidewalk. Although he's none too steady himself, Harold does his best to come to her rescue. After more than a few moments of clumsiness and thrills, he looks down at the street and this sobers him up quick. Any similarity between the stunts in this film and some of those in Safety Last are probably not a coincidence. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1920
In order to inherit a mansion, a young girl (Mildred Davis) must live there for a year with her husband. She doesn't have a spouse, though, so her lawyer goes looking for one...and comes up with Harold Lloyd. With that, laughs are guaranteed, especially since the girl's uncle Wallace Howe wants to scare the couple away so he can have the mansion to himself. The best part of this two-reeler actually happens before Mildred and Harold even meet, and he is trying -- very unsuccessfully! -- to commit suicide after being thrown over by a faithless ex-girlfriend. This was the first film Lloyd shot after the accident in which his hand was maimed by a prop bomb. You'd never guess it, though, in this or any of his subsequent movies -- the prosthetic device he uses looks exactly like a real hand. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, (more)
- 1919
This two-reel Harold Lloyd short introduced Mildred Davis as his new co-star -- she took Bebe Daniels' place; Daniels, an extremely talented comedienne, left to become a star in her own right. This picture has a bit more pathos than Lloyd's normal fare. Davis is a pretty young lady who is about to inherit a fortune, but a gang of crooks, led by Snub Pollard, are plotting to get control of her money with the help of her shyster attorney. While on a drive, Mildred sees a boy (Lloyd) protecting a little child (Peggy Courtwright) from a crowd. When she finds out that Harold is in trouble because he tried to use a counterfeit bill to buy some food for himself and the little girl, she pays for the food and leaves. Harold, touched by her act, goes looking for her. Meanwhile, Snub is planning to kidnap Mildred so that she won't be able to sign the documents that will give her the fortune -- if she cannot be found by midnight, she loses the inheritance. Harold gets mixed up with the bad guys and agrees to help them get Mildred. Of course he bungles everything, both unintentionally and on purpose, and manages to get Mildred to the lawyer's office to sign the necessary papers. Romance follows, as it eventually did for Lloyd and Davis. They married in 1923. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1919
Salesman Bryant Washburn has some pretty peculiar ideas about love and marriage. Even after wedding winsome Mildred Davis, Washburn insists upon living separately and seeing Davis only on "dates". Inevitably, this leads to jealousy and misunderstanding. Equally inevitably, Washburn and his wife settle down to a normal relationship. All Wrong was one of the few films made by Mildred Davis before she became the leading lady-onscreen as well as off-of comedian Harold Lloyd. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1916
Mildred Niles (Clara Kimball Young) is the daughter of a wealthy broker (E.M. Kimball); Ted Vandeveer (Chester Barnett) is a penniless relative of the wealthy Archie Vandeveers. The two meet and fall in love. Ted's friend, Jim Sweeney (William Jefferson), thinks he should take advantage of the girl's wealth. But Mildred's father has been enmeshed in a bad stock deal which has broken him and her mother (Ina Brooks) wants her to marry the supposedly-rich Vandeveer before this is discovered. So the two overcome any pangs of conscience and wed, but afterwards they confess to each other that they are broke. It turns out, however, they aren't after all, because Ted's uncle has left him a million dollars -- providing that he marry. Clara Kimball Young was primarily a dramatic -- or as they said in those days "emotional" -- actress, and this was one of her rare comic turns. It was based on a play by Bertram Marburgh and W. Pezet. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
