''Hot Water'' is a 1924 American silent

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...

directed by Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor and starring

Harold Lloyd Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. (April 20, 1893 – March 8, 1971) was an American actor, comedian, and stunt performer who appeared in many silent comedy films.Obituary ''Variety'', March 10, 1971, page 55. One of the most influential film co ...

. It features three episodes in the life of Hubby (Lloyd) as he struggles with domestic life with Wifey (

Jobyna Ralston Jobyna Ralston (born Jobyna Lancaster Raulston, November 21, 1899 – January 22, 1967) was an American stage and film actress. She had a featured role in ''Wings'' in 1927, but is perhaps best remembered today for her on-screen chemistry with H ...

) and his in-laws.

Plot

The film opens with Lloyd and his best friend sprinting crazily along the street to get to the friend's wedding in time. Lloyd is impatient and resentful of all of that breathless running; he naively views being single as simpler and more desirable --- "I don't see why a man would want to run to his own wedding! You were born a bachelor; why not just let well enough alone?" He then snortingly opines that he himself would never give up his freedom "just for a pair of soft-boiled eyes", but then he accidentally knocks into the alluringly-lovely

, and after one look into her huge clear gentle "soft-boiled eyes", he's totally smitten. The remainder of the film greatly changes pace. Episodic in nature (effectively three

short films A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

merged into one), the first episode features Hubby (Lloyd) winning a live turkey in a

raffle A raffle is a gambling competition in which people obtain numbered tickets, each of which has the chance of winning a prize. At a set time, the winners are drawn at random from a container holding a copy of each number. The drawn tickets are chec ...

and taking it home on a crowded

streetcar A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...

, much to the chagrin of the other passengers. The second features Hubby grudgingly taking the family en masse out on his brand new Butterfly Six automobile (with disastrous results), and the third is an escapade with his sleepwalking mother-in-law. The third segment almost qualifies the film as a horror movie, as in it, Hubby mistakenly believes he has killed his mother-in-law, and when she starts sleepwalking later, he thinks she's a ghost haunting him.

Cast

Production

The film is a light comedy with minimal character development, and followed Lloyd’s early 1920s pattern of alternating what he called “gag pictures” with “character pictures”. Some distributors had complained about the length of his previous elaborate feature ''

Girl Shy ''Girl Shy'' is a 1924 romantic comedy silent film starring Harold Lloyd and Jobyna Ralston. The movie was written by Sam Taylor, Tim Whelan and Ted Wilde and was directed by Fred C. Newmeyer and Taylor. In 2020, the film entered the publi ...

'', and ''Hot Water'' was the response. Its storyline was also interesting as a unique departure from most of Lloyd’s 1920s features, because his character was married with a family, and was not striving for success, recognition, or romance. It was popular at the box office and grossed $1,350,000, an excellent return for a film of the period. The fictional "Butterfly Six" was in reality a 1923

Chevrolet Superior Sedan The Chevrolet Superior Series F was launched in 1923, manufactured by Chevrolet for four years with a different series per year. The 1923 model was known as the Series B, the 1924 model was the Series F, for 1925 it was known as the Series K and ...

Renewed interest in Harold Lloyd

In 1962, the "live turkey" and "Butterfly Six automobile" sequences were included in a

compilation film A compilation film, or compilation movie is a film composed of scenes and shots taken from two or more prior films and edited together so as to make a new film, whether on the same or a different subject. The most common example would be a docum ...

produced by Harold Lloyd himself entitled '' Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy''. The film premiered at the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...

and created a renewal of interest in the comedian by introducing him to a whole new generation. Critic Christopher Workman comments "At a way, way too long 59 minutes, "Hot Water" relies on a seemingly endless succession of pratfalls for its yuks. The only horror-tinged segment is the third.....Still and all, the film was a huge success."

References

External links

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~Hot Water~ 1924
at silenthollywood.com {{Sam Taylor 1924 films 1924 comedy films American silent feature films American black-and-white films Films directed by Fred C. Newmeyer Films directed by Sam Taylor Silent American comedy films Pathé Exchange films 1920s American films