Never Weaken
About Never Weaken
Harold Lloyd works in an office next to Mildred Davis. Her employer, the osteopath Dr. Frank Gary, is about to let her go because business is slow. Lloyd injures people on the street and hands them the doctor’s card. He then sees Mildred with a man and thinks the man has proposed. He blindfolds himself and ties a string to a pistol. A light bulb pops and he believes he is dead. A girder from the building next door swings his chair out over the street. He climbs around the steel, gets to the ground, and learns the man was her brother, a clergyman who will marry them.
Cast & crew
More about Never Weaken
Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor directed. Hal Roach, Sam Taylor, and H. M. Walker wrote it. Hal Roach produced it. Walter Lundin photographed it. Pathé Exchange released the three-reel short. It was Lloyd’s last short before he moved to features.
Themes
Making
Lloyd and the crew treated the short as a trial of the high-building shots they wanted for a feature.
Look
Walter Lundin photographed the office and the girder that carries Lloyd’s chair off the building.
Music
Silent.
Preservation
Prints survive. A copy is on the Internet Archive, and another is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Mildred Davis plays the girl. William Gillespie plays Dr. Frank Gary, uncredited. Roy Brooks is the other man. Mark Jones is the acrobat. Charles Stevenson plays a policeman.
- The building gags were worked out on this short and used again for Safety Last! (1923).
Scenes
- Lloyd injures passersby and gives them Dr. Gary’s card.
- A bulb pops and he thinks the pistol has gone off.
- The girder lifts his chair over the street.
- He learns the man with Mildred is her brother.
Influenced
- Safety Last! (1923)
Also available
- Internet Archive (Never_Weaken_1921)
- Wikimedia Commons (Never Weaken (1921) by Fred Newmeyer.webm)
