Another pal, Daniel Frank, notes that Turner Movie Classics is favoring us with a cavalcade of Harold Lloyd movies. Here's a link to the schedule, and I'll be TiVoing a lot of them, but I would take issue with Daniel's assertion that Lloyd was "just as funny as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, if not funnier." As much as I like many of his films, I never felt they were in the same league as Keaton's or Chaplin's best. And, not that Daniel was making this distinction, I always felt their quality was more because of the writing and direction than the star. Lloyd knew how to hire the best support team and get the best work out of them. Then he'd — to use a term I've heard comedians use — "perform the hell" out of the material.
But he wasn't all that funny. Chaplin and especially Keaton were fascinating and amusing in how they moved, how they reacted, how they thought. (One of the keys to being a great physical comedian — and this, Lloyd did have going for him — was that they have to be able to show you what and how they're thinking.) It's especially amazing to see Keaton in those later, low-budget shorts and TV shows he made. They aren't that funny but he usually is. He'd find a way to get a laugh from opening a door or swatting a fly. Lloyd, in order to be funny, had to dangle from a building or accidentally put on a magician's coat.
Ed Wynn used to say, "A comedian is not a man who says funny things. A comedian is a man who says things funny." If you don't understand what that means, watch a couple of those Harold Lloyd films. They're very entertaining, and you'll have a great time. But what you'll see is Harold Lloyd doing a lot of funny things. You'll rarely catch him doing things funny.
[UPDATE: I did a slight rewrite on the above at 10:15 PM to fix up some muddy language.]