Among
Those Present is a nice short silent film at almost
thirty-five minutes. Nothing too involved happens to write a decent summary so
here is a short and sweet one. Finally a short summary from me, right?
A high society woman is planning a party. She has a woman
known as a Society Pilot plan the party and to invite all the most important
people. The society woman reads in the paper that a Lord Abernathy has come to
town. She gets very excited seeing this news item and tells the Society Pilot
that she must have the Lord come to the house. The Society Pilot immediately
gets on the phone to a man credited as The “Hard Boiled Party” (for the sake of
this summary and my sanity and yours this guy will be referred to as HBP) and
tells him that he has to whatever he can to get the Lord to the party even if it
means kidnapping him or their scheme will be blown.
Meanwhile in another room, the husband of the society
woman and their daughter (Mildred Davis) are happily playing some old Irish
tunes on the fiddle and dancing. The society woman comes in and yells at them
for doing such low class things. The father is obviously very upset with his
pushy wife.
At a fancy hotel a Boy (Harold Lloyd) is in the lobby. He
is wearing a fancy coat, hat, and gloves and smoking. An older man comes into
the lobby and goes up to the boy staring at him. The Boy sees the man staring
at him and he removes the coat and hat to reveal that he is just the hotel bell
boy. The HBP sees The Boy and what he had just done and asks The Boy if he
would like to dress up for a party as a Lord.
The Boy as the Lord walks into the dull party and
everyone immediately lights up. He even lights up when he sees The Girl. The
society woman has him tell stories about his hunting parties. The Boy makes up
some courageous and hilarious hunting escapades. After his stories he overhears
the Society Pilot and the HBP discuss their scheme and how he (HBP) is going to
marry The Girl.
The following day is the hunting party. All the guests
are outside ready to chase foxes and whatever snobbish things happen at a party
like that. The Boy is terrified of going hunting and riding horses. He tries to
hide and this being a Harold Lloyd film fails at doing this hilariously. He
does manage to get on a horse that goes crazy on him which throws him onto a
wild bucking bull which them throws him over a fence and makes The Boy lose his
pants. He does not realize he has lost his pants until some of the women in the
party see him and scream and run away.
The Boy tries very hard to hide and stay away from the
rest of the party. He had finally found a spot to hide when he sees the HBP
bothering the girl. The Boy finds a feed sack to tie around his waist and goes
out to save The Girl. He hooks the HBP to a rig and he pulls the guy up away
from The Girl.
The father finally has enough of the mother and the
society people around him and yells at her and the guests to leave. The Girl
comes into the room with The Boy. She tells her father that he is an imposter
he is a normal guy. The father likes The Boy and likes him all the more once he
finds out The Boy is also Irish. The Boy is so in love with The Girl that he
eats the flowers on the table instead of the food because all he can think
about is her.
Ok, maybe that summary was not as short as I had planned but
that is the whole story of Among Those
Present. It was alright. It is the usual Harold Lloyd film where he likes a
girl and crazy things happen to him where he has to hide and get passed people
and then he finally gets with the girl. I like Harold Lloyd films I think he
was very funny and entertaining but all his films were the same just with different
settings and somewhat different plots. Among
Those Present is available to view in full on YouTube. If you like Harold
Lloyd it is worth seeing.
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