The Navy Department caught on pretty early to the power of film, and were probably delighted to take advantage of the opportunity presented by Luke Joins the Navy. With America only a year away from entering The Great War, it was no doubt considered a recruiting boon to have Harold Lloyd and Snub Pollard playing it for laughs aboard a US Navy warship. As only fragments of this comedy are currently available for general viewing, it's hard to give it a fair grade, so I'll split the difference and give it a 5. That said, Luke is not a character I particularly enjoy--I find his moustache particularly galling--but Lloyd and Pollard make the most of their time at sea, and the footage of real sailors (and real warships) is impressive enough.
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JohnSeal7 October 2008
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planktonrules7 November 2008As another reviewer, John Seal, indicated in his review, this film is only a fragment and it's really not possible to review the film. For the parts remaining, they aren't very funny though who knows--maybe the missing parts were pure comedy gold! The beginning of the film you find Harold Lloyd playing his "Lonesome Luke" character--a guy with none of the subtlety or charm of Lloyd's later bespectacled persona. Like most other comedians of the 1910-1919 era, his humor is far from sophisticated and there is lots on falling and bonking all done in a very, very exaggerated way--a style that really didn't age well! Out of the blue, Lloyd decides he's going to join the navy and you really wonder if part of the film leading to it is missing. After all, the decision seemed to come from no where and why Snub Pollard would also join is unclear. And, oddly, they seem to skip all training and are stationed on a navy ship. Soon Pollard's wife comes to the boat looking for him and she's put off the boat as the movie ends very, very anticlimactically.
Unfortunately, there's nothing that funny or interesting in the film other than it's one of the earliest appearances of Harold Lloyd on film and you get to see some very old naval ships. Unless you are a rabid die-hard fan, it's pretty skipable. -
tavm27 January 2019The short segment of this film is all that now exists of this Harold Lloyd/Lonesome Luke pic. Some of the beginning takes place in a store Luke works at then abruptly segues to a Navy ship after he joins. I saw this on a disc set called "American Slapstick 2". What I saw was pretty amusing but I'll not put a rating until I see the whole thing...