Welcome Danger (1929)

In 1928 Harold Lloyd began production on his silent film Welcome Danger, the story of a police chief’s meek son uncovering a crime ring in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The film business was changing rapidly, however, as the transition to sound was well underway. Lloyd’s publicly stated initial plan was to complete the silent version, preview and edit it, and then determine how to produce a sound version. Ultimately, he did shoot much of the film a second time, choosing to recast several of the key roles, blending some of the footage shot for the silent film with new dialogue sequences, and adding sound effects.

Lloyd’s sound version of Welcome Danger became, and remains, his highest grossing film, but the silent version was also distributed by Paramount, which advertised in the trade papers: “Silent version is a knockout too! Available to unwired theaters.”

Ever the practical businessman, Lloyd told the New York Telegram in October 1929 that “incidentally, we made five different versions of the same story. We have the silent film, the talkie, one that is synchronized, one with the conversation recorded on discs and another with the conversation on a separate film. I shall always continue to make a silent picture of every story I produce. The foreign market is too valuable.”

However, this was not to be, and the first version of Welcome Danger was Harold Lloyd’s final silent film. The film has been restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive using original materials donated to the archive by the Lloyd family. This screening will feature a new print with a newly recorded original score by Robert Israel, courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Harold Lloyd Corp./Paramount Famous Lasky Corp. Director Clyde Bruckman. Story Clyde Bruckman, Lex Neal, Felix Adler, Paul Gerard Smith. Cinematography Walter Lundin, Henry L. Kohler. Editing Bernard Burton, Carl Himm. Cast Harold Lloyd, Barbara Kent, Noah Young, Charles Middleton, William Walling, James Wang, Douglas Haig. 35mm, silent, 108 mins.