This is because there’s nothing between you and the laugh. Lloyd does a physical stunt, a prank, or a funny face, and you laugh at it: it’s that simple. The humor here is free of pop culture references, or irony, or any of the other triggers we have come to accept as “funny.” It’s almost as if you’re laughing with another part of your brain. It doesn’t hurt that the story of this film is as wild and complicated and zany as one of Lloyd’s leg-swings: Lloyd is a small town Nevada boy who has moved to the big city, where he works a miserable job as a cashier on the first floor of a department store.
His wife is back home, waiting to be sent for; when she shows up unexpectedly, he has to immediately transform himself into the high-ranking employee he has deemed himself in his letters home. He devises a scheme: he’ll get an agile friend to scale the side of the building where he works, drawing attention to the company and garnering him a huge reward, along with, we think, a promotion. Through a mishap, Lloyd himself becomes the climber: danger ensues! All ends well, with a healthy dose of Lloyd’s trademark physical wackiness.
