Harold and Snub are next-door neighbors in the suburbs in this-one reel comedy. It's the only time in his career that Lloyd took a directing credit, which he shared with Frank Terry, even though he frequently did uncredited directing on his movies -- he figured, like Buster Keaton, that his staf could use the credit more.
It's a funny movie -- Lloyd's unit was still Roach's only regular money-maker, despite the boss' attempts to start other series; he would spin off Snub into his own series the following year, start releasing Our Gang in 1922, and then the successes would become almost commonplace. However, it's a late one-reel movie, either cut down from what was intended to be a longer piece, or possibly shelved earlier and then released to fill a hole in the schedule. It's fast, it has a goodly number of jokes that are filmed cheaply (a sequence in which Harold and Snub stand on their back porches and throw things at each other is shot in alternating medium close-ups, instead of one medium long shot), and played satisfactorily.
It's a funny movie -- Lloyd's unit was still Roach's only regular money-maker, despite the boss' attempts to start other series; he would spin off Snub into his own series the following year, start releasing Our Gang in 1922, and then the successes would become almost commonplace. However, it's a late one-reel movie, either cut down from what was intended to be a longer piece, or possibly shelved earlier and then released to fill a hole in the schedule. It's fast, it has a goodly number of jokes that are filmed cheaply (a sequence in which Harold and Snub stand on their back porches and throw things at each other is shot in alternating medium close-ups, instead of one medium long shot), and played satisfactorily.