Number, Please?
About Number, Please?
At an amusement park, the boy who has lost the girl sees her with a new boyfriend. Her dog gets loose and both men have to help catch it. Her uncle, a balloonist, gives her a pass for two, if her mother agrees. She will take whichever admirer reaches the mother first. The race is a telephone call. Harold Lloyd is the boy. Mildred Davis is the girl.
Cast & crew
More about Number, Please?
Hal Roach and Fred C. Newmeyer directed. H. M. Walker wrote the titles. Roach produced. Pathé Exchange released the short in 1920. It runs 23 minutes. Roy Brooks, Sunshine Sammy Morrison, and Charles Stevenson are billed. Roach himself is also in the cast list.
Themes
Making
Roach and Newmeyer hang the reel on one rule the girl announces: mother’s consent, first call wins. Lloyd’s trouble is the park telephone, not the balloon.
Music
Silent.
Preservation
A 23-minute print survives.
Notes
- The title is the operator’s question. The prize is a seat in the uncle’s balloon.
- The dog is the first contest. The telephone is the second.
- An Internet Archive copy is filed as Number_Please.
- A Commons copy carries the 1920 title.
Scenes
- Both suitors chase the dog through the park.
- She offers the second balloon seat to whoever gets her mother on the telephone first.
Also available
- Internet Archive (Number_Please)
- Wikimedia Commons (Number, Please (1920).webm)
