ThiefHott Too much of everything

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Jay Raskin Harold Lloyd was a master of the comic sequence. He would put together 40 or 50 rapid-fire gags, each one building on the one before and knock you out of your seat with laughter with each brilliant ten or fifteen or ten minute sequence. The only problem with most of his films is a little weakness in connecting the sequences. Leo McCarey is not a gag craftsman. He just brings on one gag after another and hardly cares if they're connected or make sense. In his masterpiece, the Marx Brother's "Duck Soup," this style passes for zaniness and fits well with the anarchistic persona of the brothers.In this case, it sabotages Lloyd's genius. Here we have Lloyd's usual lightly connected sequences, but the weakness is compounded by McCarey's disconnection of the gags within a sequence. You can feel Lloyd fighting to connect the set of gags into a sequence and McCarey just moving on to a different set of gags. Only in the last boxing sequence does Lloyd manage to put together 15 or 20 gags for a hilarious sequence, but the five or six minutes here is still much shorter than the great gag sequences in most of his other films. There is also a wonderful sequence between Lloyd and a horse. I suspect if McCarey had allowed Lloyd to expand it for another five minutes, it would have become a classic. Lloyd gets some serious comic help here from Adolphe Menjou and Lionel Stander. Menjou plays sleazy better than any else. Like the brilliantly scheming lawyer he played in "Roxie Hart," here he plays a brilliantly scheming boxing promoter. Stander plays the body guard/funny tough-guy type he always did so well. Lionel Stander makes every scene he's in interesting. Even when he's in a terrible movie like Roman Polansky's "Cul de Sac," (1966) his acting manages to save scene after scene. There's a little political irony here. Adolphe Menjou was a friendly conservative witness before HUAC in the 1950's, while Lionel Stander was blacklisted for his communist beliefs.Lloyd also gets help from Menjou's beautiful wife Verree Teasdale. She delivers some sharp wisecracks that she somehow sneaks past the Hay's Office, and Helen Mack as his sweet sister. Both woman are fine, but are hamstrung by the little screen time their characters are given.This is an interesting movie to compare to Lloyd's last masterpiece, "The Sin of Harold Diddlebock" (Preston Sturges, 1947). There is a short scene of less than one minute with a lion and Lloyd. There is just two or three gags. They're funny, but then the lion disappears from the film. In Diddlebock, Lloyd appears with "Jackie the Lion." This time he uses the lion for about 100 gags in a great classic 30 minute sequence that both sums up and ends his motion picture career.It is sad to think that "Milky Way" was considered a success at the time of its release, while "Diddlebock" was considered a failure.

evanston_dad In this very solid Harold Lloyd screwball comedy, Lloyd plays an unassuming milk delivery man who finds himself on the front pages when he's credited with knocking out the world middle-weight boxing champion, Speed McFarland, in a street brawl. The negative publicity this news generates for McFarland comes much to the dismay of McFarland's manager, the slick Adolphe Menjou, who instantly plans a damage-control scheme. Lloyd will go up against a number of other boxers and win in fixed fights, building anticipation for a rematch against McFarland, in which McFarland will clobber him in the first round, since Lloyd doesn't really know how to fight. Of course, nothing plays out as simply as it should, and all manner of hijinks and supporting characters find themselves mixed up in this zany plot.I was impressed by the tight screenplay for "The Milky Way." It's classic 30s screwball, which means the script doesn't have to make a lot of sense, but even so the scriptwriters flesh out little details in the action -- like a thug who can't read, or Lloyd's affection for his milk cart horse, Agnes -- that play a role later in the plot. And the film is filled with all manner of sight gags and one-liners. Some of my favorite set pieces are the ones in which Menjou's sardonic girlfriend, played like a champ by Verree Teasdale, an actress I've never heard of, teaches Lloyd how to box by turning his training into a dance lesson; and a hilarious bit that finds Lloyd racing to his big match with McFarland while lugging around a colt, offspring of the beloved Agnes. Director Leo McCarey knows how to stage physical comedy, and the frame at any given time is stuffed with all manner of characters doing or saying something completely separate from what everybody else is doing or saying, so that the reigning visual style of the film is controlled chaos."The Milky Way" may not be in the same league as some of its screwball contemporaries, like "My Man Godfrey" or "Bringing Up Baby," but I guarantee it will put a smile on your face.Grade: B+

Snow Leopard This enjoyable Harold Lloyd comedy makes good use of a familiar setup, and it also gives Lloyd a chance to do a lot of the kinds of physical gags that were such a big part of his silent movie classics. Adolphe Menjou and the supporting cast give Lloyd plenty of help, and director Leo McCarey is also right at home with this kind of material.Lloyd plays a milkman who gets involved with a shady fight promoter, played by Menjou, after a chance encounter with the middleweight champ gives Lloyd's character a reputation as 'the fighting milkman'. The premise is funny, but it calls for some good acting and direction to make it hold up for a full-length feature, and fortunately this movie has both.Lloyd's ducking and dancing antics bring to mind some of the classic routines in his silent movie triumphs. Besides the boxing scenes, there is a hilarious, classic sequence with Lloyd and Marjorie Gateson practicing the ducking technique together. Menjou is also in his element as the fast-talking promoter, helping even the most implausible material to work smoothly.The result is a solid comedy that, while a cut below Lloyd's silent classics, has some very good moments and is enjoyable to watch.

Ron Oliver A mild-mannered milkman finds himself swept into the world of dishonest professional boxing.Although forever famous for his silent classics, THE MILKY WAY once again illustrated Harold Lloyd's complete ease with the sound medium. Indeed, Paramount Studios and director Leo McCarey gave him the opportunity to entertain his fans with some very enjoyable gags & comedy routines. Whether frantically trying to find help for his sick horse, teaching stuffy society matron Marjorie Gateson how to duck punches, or sneaking a colt into the back of a taxi, Harold provides ample evidence that he hasn't lost the talent to amuse.A very talented cast of costars lend able support. Gum-chewing Adolphe Menjou scores as an unscrupulous fight promoter. As his long-suffering girlfriend, beautiful Verree Teasdale gets the film's best dialogue with her sarcastic one-liners. Hot-tempered William Gargan as the erstwhile middleweight champ & gravely-voiced Lionel Stander as a fight trainer complete the disreputable quartet.Helen Mack as Harold's sister, and Dorothy Wilson as his sweetheart, both offer perky performances; indeed, they are so much alike that some viewers may have a little difficulty in telling the two ladies apart. Dyspeptic George Barbier plays the blustery owner of Sunflower Dairies. Charles Lane once again reprises his role as a nosy reporter.