By the Sad Sea Waves (1917)
*** (out of 4)
After seeing how many women a lifeguard can get, Harold Lloyd decides to pretend to be one and sure enough it doesn't take long for him to get thrown into the action -- with both women and people actually drowning. When not playing the Lonesome Luke character, Lloyd began to experiment with the glasses but one shouldn't expect the same type of character that he would be playing during the 1920s. What we have here isn't quite as funny but I must admit that there were several times where I was laughing extremely hard. I think the highlight of the film comes when Lloyd is being grabbed by several girls and he's called to action when a man is drowning but the only problem is that he ends up saving the wrong person. There's some gags towards the end involving people getting the shower rooms mixed up and there are some fine laughs here, although none of them are all that big. I thought Lloyd was extremely good and rather charming here. This includes the before mentioned scene but I also thought his flirting with the girls was quite charming. 'Snub' Pollard isn't given enough to do here but it's always fun seeing him and Bebe Daniels is fine as "The Doll."
