Watch The Milky Way For Free

Wonderful Movie

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Mild-mannered milk truck driver Harold Lloyd (as Burleigh "Tiger" Sullivan) defends his sister against a drunken middleweight boxing champion, then is mistaken for a fighter. He can't really box, of course, but manager Adolphe Menjou (as Gabby Sloan) makes Mr. Lloyd a famous fighter by fixing fights. "The Milky Way" is neither the best nor the worst of Lloyd's talking pictures. He is given an able director, adequate vehicle, and an extended "comic" support. With his distinctive voice, Lionel Stander (as "Spider" Schultz) makes a strong impression. Some of former box office champion Lloyd's best material involved special effects, and he still looks magical performing "hat tricks" herein. Nevertheless, it's obviously not working as well as Lloyd's classic silent features.***** The Milky Way (2/7/36) Leo McCarey ~ Harold Lloyd, Adolphe Menjou, Lionel Stander, Verree Teasdale

I have fond memories of "The Milky Way".Around 6 or 7 years ago I was working my way through one of those 50 movies sets.You know,those cheaply packaged box sets that always end up having some really good classic movies in them? Anyway,I stuck a disc in my player and sat down to watch some movie I had never heard of before.Of course it was "The Milky Way" with Harold Lloyd,and as I watched I couldn't take my eyes off this cute & funny young man in glasses. After I finished watching this wonderful classic gem,I had to know one thing: Who in the heck IS Harold Lloyd? Well,I did some online checking and found out,and since then I have become a total fan.I now own everything of his that's available and it seems like I became a fan just in the nick of time since THE Harold Lloyd(Newline)box set was just released. Just a small word of advice to anybody who doesn't like this movie.Try something else of Harold Lloyd's.He made so many wonderful films like "Grandma's Boy","Safety Last" "The Freshman" and my favorite "The Kid Brother".You won't be sorry you did.

"The Milky Way" follows a typical Lloyd scenario - Harold is unwittingly thrust into becoming something he's not - in this case a mild mannered milkman becomes a boxing champ. As usual for the Lloyd talkies, very little new ground is broken, but in terms of sheer entertainment value, it stacks up nicely against the other films of it's time.Particularly notable here is the outstanding supporting cast, especially Adolphe Menjou as the sleazy manager and his real life wife, Verree Teasdale as the gangster moll, who steals scene- after-scene with rapid-fire sarcastic quips that would be emulated by a generation of film noir "lippy dames" from Gloria Grahame to Lauren Bacall.A comedic precursor to boxing noir - check it out.

I taped this movie when it was shown on TCM recently and I've rewatched it several times since, enjoying it more with each viewing. It's a hilarious and energetic movie, and the editing, framing, and compositions of characters are always fresh, funny, and cliché-free. I especially like how the film echoes Burleigh's "ducking" abilities by cleverly using "ducking" techniques, or ellipses, in various ways: in telling the story, by leaving out certain scenes and revealing them later; and even in framing (in one scene Adolph Menjou plays a scene hidden behind a tree branch, "ducking out" of the frame). This film is as good as The Awful Truth and to me has the same strange beauty of that wonderful film.