arfdawg-1 The plot.Twenty years after his triumphs as a freshman on the football field, Harold is a mild-mannered clerk who dreams about marrying the girl at the desk down the aisle. But losing his job destroys that dream, and when he finds a particularly potent drink at his local bar, he goes on a very strange and funny rampage (with a lion in tow). A rather odd film that doesn't really work. Not sure why it gets such good reviews. It was so poorly received when it came out that Howard Hughes pulled it, re-edited it and released it as Mad Wednesday in 1950! With an apparently shorter version that nearly cut out some of the players -- notably Rudy Valee.He also put Lloyd's name UNDER the title, causing a lawsuit by Harold. What a mess.I've read that the shorter version is more liked by viewers.

ppak11 Thank you Preston Sturges for this little hidden treasure. This movie evolves from scene to scene slowly and gracefully in some places and abruptly and catastrophically in others. It is like life and it is not like life. Harold Lloyd is brilliant throughout. The action packed football scene sets the stage, part Three Stooges part WC Fields. There are scenes in this movie that are at the pinnacle of comedy -seriously the best comedy of all time! (See the bartender scene, the take my circus scene, the form fit Franklin for the fit phenomenal scene, the your fired scene) then there are places where the pacing wanes for you to catch your breath and better enjoy what is to come. The lessons to live by involve accepting a little risk. I love this movie. Anyone who has ever mistrusted a banker should love this movie too.

Tom DeFelice "The Sin of Harold Diddlebock" and "Mad Wednesday" are like two twins who hate each other, so they try to change the way they look. Preston Sturges talked Harold Lloyd into coming back to movies after he had retired. Not only that but Lloyd allowed Sturges to use part of his film "The Freshman" for the opening of the film and to be an investor. Their agreement was that each had the final cut of the film. Lloyds' cut is called "The Sin of Harold Diddlebock". Sturges' is called "Mad Wednesday".Some material is lost on both cuts and some is added. Both are utterly funny with "Mad Wednesday" being a little crazier. Rudy Vallee is almost lost in "Diddlebock" but a major character in "Wednesday". And though both end with Lloyd and Frances Ramsden (The next Mrs. Sturges) in a horse drawn carriage, the last shot of "Wednesday" has the horse singing to the lovers.If you are interested in how two comic geniuses could shape the same material into two different pictures, then you must see them both. Silly. Funny. Absolutely must sees.

Rob Williams This film drags in some parts, and Lloyd I think puts off some modern viewers. The first time I watched it I thought it was the film equivalent of seeing Ali vs. Andre the Giant. But Sturges' brilliance is in here, and the degree to which it is derived from Lloyd is paid homage to in a wonderful, dark, surreal way. How can you not love a film that starts with the last moments of Lloyd's The Freshman and then shows the hero turned into a mail room stooge who gets buried by the corporate system? The ending is wonderfully hypnotic, happy? Well as is always the case, the poor down trodden guy figures out how to operate the machine just enough to produce his own deus ex machina. Sturges and Lloyd look more brilliant and visionary than ever from the vantage point of post-Enron, MCI, etc.