Harold Lloyd by Robert E. Sherwood

[Ed Watz]

"Harold Lloyd himself is not a great comedian - not to be compared, individually, with Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harry Langdon, W.C. Fields... He has no genius for pantomimic clowning; his humor, at all times, is reliant upon the surrounding situations. But he has something that all these others lack..."

A profile of Harold Lloyd by Robert E. Sherwood, appearing in The New Yorker, January 30, 1926. Surprisingly modern analysis in some respects while reflecting how "Harold" epitomized the spirit of the Twenties. Nice to see Harry Langdon categorized by Sherwood as one of the great comedians even before any of his features were released. (Sorry about the poor copy on the second page, I couldn't improve the image.)

Update: Here's the link where you can access this article and hopefully enlarge the image without too much distortion: https://www.google.de/books/edition/The ... frontcover

PF1.jpeg (216.98 KiB) Viewed 3604 times

PF2.jpeg (253.12 KiB) Viewed 3604 times

[William Ferry]

It's interesting that Sherwood actually mentions the effects of the bomb: the loss to his right hand.

[Ed Watz]

It's interesting that Sherwood actually mentions the effects of the bomb: the loss to his right hand.

Yes indeed. It's not the first mention in the press of Harold's hand injury (those reports came soon after the occurrence in 1919) but Sherwood's account appeared when Lloyd was at the height of his popularity in 1926, a box office king. You'd imagine Lloyd's public relations team would've asked Sherwood to downplay the aftermath of this horrible event, apparently they didn't.

I don't imagine readership of The New Yorker was particularly high outside of metropolitan New York City at this point in time, less than a year after the magazine's founding, because there doesn't seem to be any followup in other media outlets.