Too often silent films were bogged down with inter-titles, slowing the action and frequently boring the audience to tears.
Harold Lloyd avoids that, especially in "Dr. Jack."
"Dr. Jack" the movie is a light story, perhaps even silly in spots, but it MOVES, and Dr. Jack the character is such a pleasant and kind and likable person that he overcomes any minor problem like that.
Turner Classic Movies presented this recently with a new score by Robert Israel, who captures the mood perfectly. He is quite the silent film composer, obviously a man of much talent.
For 1922, the acting was great to adequate, and Harold Lloyd is such a graceful and athletic performer that he could alone make this worthwhile; but he is accompanied by many other talented players, so many of whom, alas, don't even get screen credit (although Mickey Daniels, for example, is so recognizable, maybe he doesn't need to be named).
"Dr. Jack" is a lot of fun to watch, in part because you can just watch -- and laugh -- and not have to spend much effort reading.
Dr. Jack
1922
Action / Comedy / Romance
Dr. Jack
1922
Action / Comedy / Romance
Plot summary
Dr. Ludwig von Saulsbourg is a big city physician whose primary goal is to bilk as much money out of his patients as possible. He has been treating a young woman for nearly four years, prescribing her complete rest, darkness, and medication, and, in the process, billing her father exorbitant amounts of money for his services. She is not getting any better, but worse, based on her declining mental state about her health. In reality, she is physically healthy. When the family lawyer, Jamison, advises her father to call in a consulting physician, Dr. von Saulsbourg retaliates by advising him to move her to his expensive sanitarium. The antithesis to Dr. von Saulsbourg is kindhearted Dr. Jackson - affectionately referred to as Dr. Jack by his patients - of small town Magnolia Meadows, who treats his patients with compassion and understanding. That understanding is knowing what truly ails his patients, which often is nothing physical or medical, and treating them without embarrassing them. When Dr. Jack is called in by Jamison as that consulting physician, he is initially unaware that this case is the young woman whom he met casually and fell in love with at first sight when she passed through Magnolia Meadows. Dr. Jack sees immediately that there is nothing physically wrong with her, and that a little excitement in her life is what is truly needed to rejuvenate her existence. What threatens Dr. Jack being able to help her is his feelings for her, which others may believe makes him an inappropriate person to treat her, and Dr. von Saulsbourg doing whatever he can to hang onto his meal ticket.
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Sight-gag-filled joy
sweet Harold Lloyd
The Sick-Little-Well-Girl (Mildred Davis) is being treated by Doctor von Saulsbourg who forces her to stay in bed and trapped in her own home. Then he decides to sent her to his private sanitarium. Dr. 'Jack' Jackson (Harold Lloyd) is a simple country doctor who cares for his poor patients whether they are a little girl with a sick dolly or a little boy trying to skip school or an old lady who misses her busy lawyer son. Doctor von Saulsbourg and The Sick-Little-Well-Girl make a stop where they encounter Dr. Jack.
I really like the sweet doctoring from Dr. Jack until they do the accidental kiss. I get the idea of a Sleeping Beauty kiss. It would fit the story much more if she gets so excited that she's the one who kisses him. There is a lot of chasing around the rooms comedy. This is all good fun. I would really make that change with the kiss.
So-so medicine from Dr Jack
Although admittedly it has a great deal of charm, by Lloyd's high standards Dr Jack could be reckoned as a weak, sentimental and even overloaded comedy. The characters are strictly pasteboard figures: the ever-smiling Dr Jack, all goodhearted (albeit often ingenious and innovative) helpfulness; the one-dimensionally villainous specialist, all thoroughly self-centered pomposity; the heroine, a Sleeping Beauty of repressed energy and vivacity; her dad, a well-and-truly stupid thickhead; and a supporting gallery of minor bumpkins and rustics. And all of them dancing to a frenetic, rather familiar tune (though, as mentioned, it does have its deft moments and clever touches),culminating in a self-chasing climax which clearly out-stays its welcome.
In its favor, however, the movie does provide Mildred Davis with one of her best roles. Miss Davis rarely received a chance to display any histrionic ability. Her supine heroines were mostly purely decorative. Here, however, she has an opportunity to play a character not a cipher, and she rises to the bait magnificently.