User Reviews

In this Harold Lloyd comedy short, Lloyd plays one of many suitors wooing a rich girl with a very busy father. In order to win her hand, they have to get her father's permission first -- if they can even get an appointment to see him, that is.

This funny film is chock-full of physical pratfalls and sight gags. Lloyd storms the father's office, determined to talk to him at all costs, even if he has to don a suit of armor, impersonate a rampaging suffragette and out smart any number of office booby traps, not the least of which is a movable walk way that sends unwanted visitors sailing out the door.

I loved the ending of this movie too. Let's just say that things aren't always worth the effort it takes to obtain them.

The young couple have decided to marry and it is time to ask the father for the hand of his daughter. Problem is, the father does not want to give the daughter away. So every time he goes to the office to ask the father, he is tossed out.

There are some amusing incidental things here, such as an old Coca-Cola advertisement saying it cures fatigue. I also liked the midget an the secretary being referred to as "corn-fed".

This short film as a whole is pretty strong, and I would say among Lloyd's best work. Definitely better than the "Eastern Westerner". Maybe not as good as "Safety Last", but for how short this was, they really packed a lot into it.

This one-reel Harold Lloyd comedy packs a lot of good gag ideas into its short running time. There is a good variety of slapstick, sight gags, running jokes, and gadgetry, and even a brief version of the 'human fly' routine that Lloyd later made so memorable in "Safety Last". Lloyd, Bebe Daniels, and the rest of the cast all do a good job with the material.

Lloyd plays a young suitor for the hand of a rich and very preoccupied businessman, the kind of person who has a legion of assistants whose purpose is to keep everyone else away from him. Lloyd's ever-hopeful character, determined to see him to ask for his daughter's hand, is helped in his efforts by Daniels, who plays an upbeat office worker amidst all of the drudges. It's impressive how much material they squeezed out of this fairly simple setup. After a somewhat slow start, there are non-stop funny moments the rest of the way.

There are a lot of imaginative gags, and a number of them are also tied together in clever ways. The cushion gag by Daniels's character, the treadmill gadget, and the confrontations with the two tough guys who guard the entrance are all repeated in a variety of different and creative ways. It's enjoyable both for the comedy and for the ingenuity that it reveals.

At long last, I've allotted sizeable time (which should take up to the very last day of the year) to check out New Line's massive THE HAROLD LLOYD COMEDY COLLECTION 7-Disc Set!

I started off with this one, which is basically a one-joke short (albeit only 13 minutes in length) - a boy's various attempts to meet "the busiest man in town" in order to ask for his daughter's hand in marriage - which frequently has characters being shoved out of the father's office by his burly underling. Lloyd ultimately fails in his quest, but eventually finds true love with the father's secretary (played by Bebe Daniels). It's an enjoyable star vehicle which, among other things, sees Lloyd in drag; bafflingly, there's no director credit attached to this one!

Three suitors, one of who is Harold, are wooing a rich girl. Each time one of them asks to marry her, she replies "Ask father." So Harold tries to do so. The problem is, the father will see no one without an appointment – and he won't make appointments! The crux of the plot is Harold, using various stratagems and disguises, tries to get to see the father. He is repeatedly thrown out. One of the on-going gags is having Bebe Daniels place a cushion where Lloyd is likely to land after being thrown out. That was my favorite gag but I also liked Lloyd's climb up the side of the building. To me, the moving floor bit was pretty weak. Snub Pollard doesn't have much to do in this film and is thus forgettable. Bebe Daniels, however, is effervescent and has quite a screen presence. Seeing this reminded me of seeing her in the Zorro spoof "Senorita" many years ago at a film festival – she was marvelous and the movie was really funny.

A young man will go to any lengths to ask his sweetheart's father for her hand in marriage. It's an amusing enough comedy short from Harold Lloyd, but it doesn't really stand out as the work of a comedy great. He (or perhaps his stunt double) does, however, scale the side of an office block with practiced ease at one point

A Hal Roach HAROLD LLOYD Comedy Short Subject.

Infatuated with the daughter of a bullying millionaire, Harold must first ASK FATHER for permission to marry the girl.

The main attraction in this very short & funny little film is watching Harold attempt to sneak into the fierce old man's office. Movie mavens will notice that this film was made shortly before the studio accident which blew off half of Harold's right hand.

Bebe Daniels plays a sympathetic switchboard operator; Snub Pollard appears as an eccentric private secretary.

Robert Israel has composed an excellent film score which perfectly complements Harold's antics on the screen.

The boss has a popular daughter. She has two mushy suitors who have waited five months to "ask father". The boy (Harold Lloyd) is doing everything to court her and faces every hurdle.

It's a thirteen minute comedic short. It's good slapstick. The two suitors should be combined into one rival and constant bully. The treadmill is funny although I don't understand why the office would have that. The pillow is a funny bit and that sells the telephone girl. She could have more screen time. Finally near the end, he does some impressive climbing. Quite frankly, he should end the story out there if possible.

When Harold -- and every other comic on the lot who doesn't look like a movie comic --wants to marry Marie Mosquini, they must first Ask Father.

Lloyd's character was referred to by a various of titles, usually as "The Glasses" character, but Mr. Lloyd usually referred to him as "The Boy" and that's how the titles in this short refer to him. Here he's behaving as we expect him to: relatively normal at the beginning, rather self-involved, able to take the hard-knocks pratfall that slapstick demanded and when confronted with a problem, ready to come up with a solution, no matter how eccentric.

There's also a hint of thrill comedy as Harold scales a building. So, for a Harold Lloyd two-reeler, you've got the makings of everything you'd want in one of his pictures.

For those not too familiar with life almost a hundred years ago, the phrase "Ask father," meant you better get the old man's approval if you want to marry his daughter. That was a MUST, and sets up the premise for this Harold Lloyd short. He, along with several other guys, are all after the same woman but must get to the father. Unfortunately, he's a tough business leader who runs an office like a dictatorship and one runs the risk of being thrown out on his rear trying to get in and see him.

That's the gag of the movie, which doesn't really have much spark until the last six minutes when Harold gets inventive in ways to see the boss, such as wearing a suit or armor.

Without giving anything away, I will say this movie might be the ultimate in showing how lightly marriage has always been treated in the films. This is a comedy, however, so nothing to take serious anyway. I did laugh, too, at the end, when we see how much true love meant to Harold (hint: not a whole lot, as it turns out.)

Ask Father (1919)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Before he can marry the woman he loves Harold Lloyd must first ask for her father's permission. The only problem is that her father is the busiest man alive so getting near him will take some time. Here's a very funny one reel that has plenty of laughs throughout. The stuff with the two bouncers, one a midget, is hysterical as is the moving floor in the father's office. The scene where Lloyd climbs up the side of a building is also great.

You can get this film in New Line's Harold Lloyd Collection.

Film historians who have studied Harold Lloyd movies cite the year 1919 as being pivotal to the comedian. He began to balance delicately on a fine line between sentiment and sentimentality. There is no finer example of this transition than in his February 1919's "Ask Father."

The ritual of asking a girlfriend's dad for his daughter's hand has always been a high tension, nerve racking ritual for the prospective son-in-law. Lloyd puts the formality to the test when his girlfriend says she won't marry him without her father's permission. The hitch is her dad is almost impossible to see during his working hours, the only time he can be seen.

Witnessing several people being physically kicked out of the father's office, Lloyd knows this won't be easy. Fortunately, he has two things going for him. Next door to the office is a costume shop. And secondly, the office's secretary, Bebe Daniels, has a pillow she sets up strategically to cushion his fall whenever he gets thrown out. "Ask Father" is also one of Lloyd's first movies he's shown scaling a building's wall, something he exaggerates in his most famous film, "Safety Last!"