Starring: Harold Lloyd, Bebe Daniels, Harry Pollard, Bud Jamison, Marie Mosquini, T. Henderson Murray, and Arthur Housman
Director: Hal Roach
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars
A city slicker (Lloyd) and his man-servant (Pollard) head into the country where they run into lions, bears, a flirtatious Native American girl (Mosquini), and gun-toting hillbillies (Jamison and Daniels).
"Back to the Woods" is a great short film that delivers an even mix of situational comedy and slapstick and features Harold Lloyd and Bebe Daniels not only at their best and working with some excellent material.
Lloyd plays another one of those love-starved/sex-starved characters that seems to have been his bread-and-butter during the late 1910s. His character is less obnoxious than in, for example, "Ring Up the Curtain" and "Hey There". which is good because if he had been he probably would have gotten shot by Bebe Daniels' character. Their interaction throughout the picture is mostly as equals, as they rescue each other from bears and the psychotic backwoodsman played by Bud Jamison. It makes the film more palatable to the modern viewer, I think.
The characters played by Lloyd and Daniels in this film are also more appealing that the ones they portrayed in "Off the Trolley" where they were equals who were equally interested in getting laid but also equally unpleasant personality-wise. While "Back to the Woods" has characters who are an example of opposites attract, "Off the Trolley" is one of perfect mates).
Aside from the character interplay between Lloyd and Daniels, the most amusing parts of the film are scenes involves them interacting with bears... and it appears to be Lloyd in some of the scenes with an actual bear.
The version of "Back to the Woods" I've embedded below is not only the one I found online that's the clearest visually, but the music track is also better and more thoughtful than much of what is provided for many of these films. Check it out--it's well worth 10 minutes of your day!
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