In the two-reel comedy Number, Please? (1920), Harold Lloyd, playing his typical role as "The Boy," tries vainly to forget about the girl he has lost by taking in a day at a local amusement park. The camera iris opens on Harold riding a roller coaster, which was an impressive feat, since the camera was also on the roller coaster. But then Harold sees "The Girl" (Mildred Davis) with her new boyfriend, "The Rival," played by Roy Brooks. When her dog gets loose in the park, both suitors have to help her catch it in the first set piece of comedy in the two-reel short. Then, the girl's uncle, a balloonist, gives her a pass for two in his balloon, provided that her mother approves. The Girl then offers to take along the first of her admirers who is able to get her mother's consent. This sets off the second piece of business in the comedy short: Harold's attempt to make a simple phone call to secure permission from the girl's mother.

Number, Please? was directed by Lloyd's business partner Hal Roach (who can be seen playing a bit part as a sailor at the very beginning of the picture), but it's worth noting the presence of Fred Newmeyer, the co-director of the picture. Lloyd and Newmeyer were boyhood associates in Colorado. Shortly after schooling, they took very different paths. Lloyd went into show business. Newmeyer became a professional baseball pitcher, eventually playing for the Philadelphia Athletics under famed coach Connie Mack. Unfortunately, an injury cut short Newmeyer's career and he ended up in California, working for his old friend Harold Lloyd. Newmeyer co-directed many of Lloyd's films, and also was the solo director on such efforts as Grandma's Boy (1922), one of Lloyd's personal favorites.

One of Harold's co-stars from Haunted Spooks (1920) and Get Out and Get Under (1920), Ernest "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison, appears in Number, Please? in a bit part. He and Harold pull off one of the best visual gags of the film. When Harold is trying to throw some cops off his trail, he enlists a valet (Morrison) to sit upon his shoulders with an overcoat. Thus, this tiny-headed giant would pass unnoticed by the police, or at least that was the plan.

Number, Please? is another example of how Harold Lloyd's films are a time capsule into a time and place long since forgotten. This short takes place in a popular amusement attraction in Los Angeles, California called Ocean Park. Long since gone, Ocean Park was centered around a pier that jutted out into the Pacific Ocean, just north of Venice Beach. The Ocean Park structures seen in Number, Please? were consumed by a fire just four years later in 1924.

Producer: Hal Roach
Director: Fred C. Newmeyer, Hal Roach
Screenplay: H. M. Walker
Cinematography: Walter Lundin
Music: Robert Israel
Cast: Harold Lloyd (The Boy), Mildred Davis (The Girl), Roy Brooks (The Rival).
BW-25m.

by Scott McGee