Harold is a mild-mannered clerk who dreams about marrying the girl at the desk down the aisle. But then he loses his job, and when he is offered a potent drink at a bar, he goes on a very strange and funny rampage (with a lion in tow).
Twenty years after his triumphs as a freshman on the football field, Harold is a mild-mannered clerk who dreams about marrying the girl at the desk down the aisle. But losing his job destroys that dream, and when he finds a particularly potent drink at his local bar, he goes on a very strange and funny rampage (with a lion in tow).—Kathy Li
1923. Based on one specific game winning incident on the college football field, somewhat feckless Harold Diddlebock is offered a job by E.J. Waggleberry at his advertising firm after Harold graduates from college. Harold believes this offer will set him up for life. After Harold graduates, Waggleberry does offer him that job, an entry level accounting one from which Harold believes he will quickly climb the corporate ladder. Fast forward twenty-two years to 1945: Harold is still in that entry level job. Waggleberry fires him due to his ineptitude. Harold is not as much disappointed in his professional career, or lack of one, than he is in no longer seeing on a day-to-day basis Miss Otis, a graphic artist at Waggleberry's with who he is in love. Each of Miss Otis' six sisters had her job before her, and Harold loved each of them when they had the job, something all seven sisters knew and know. Harold was never financially able to ask any sister to marry him at the time. Harold leaves Waggleberry's with among other things close to $3,000 he has amassed in the company's savings. Seeing his roll of money, a down on his luck gambler named Wormy is able to convince teetotalling Harold to have his first ever drink to drown whatever ails his soul. Several days later, Harold awakens from his hangover in his bed in the home of his sister Flora, having only vague recollections of what happened since he was fired. His own suit is missing - he wearing an outlandish suit its origin he doesn't know - as is the $3,000. He slowly is able to piece together some of the events of the past few days, he now needing to deal with the aftermath of his gambling and spending spree, one purchase in particular even more outlandish than the suit and it an "asset" he might have a difficult time liquidating, that is unless he was really paying attention to all those advertising ideas in his twenty-two years at Waggleberry's...—Huggo
In 1923, Tate College freshman Harold Diddlebock (Harold Lloyd) is the water boy for his college's football team when his brought onto the team at a moment's notice when the star player and backup player are injured. After a series of movies, Harold scores the winning touchdown for his team (as told in the climax of the silent film 'The Freshman'). In the locker room during the victory party the team throws in his honor, the mild-mannered Harold Diddlebock is approached and offered a job by the pompous, sports-loving New York advertising tycoon J.E. Waggleberry (Raymond Walburn) to work at his firm.
A few months later after completing his classes and the semester, Harold drops out of the university and travels to New York City to meet with Mr. Waggleberry at his advertising office building on Madison Avenue. During the job interview, although Harold dreams of becoming an "ideas man," Waggleberry assigns him to a lowly position in the bookkeeping department.
Jumping forward 22 years later to 1945, the middle-aged Harold (still working in his boring job as bookkeeper) is promptly let go by Waggleberry for incompetency and lack of ambition. He is given an 18 karat gold Swiss pocket watch that is 'properly inscribed "with gratitude and love and kisses for 20 years devoted services"' and a severance check for $2,946.12, the remains of his company investment plan. He bids farewell to Miss Frances Otis (Frances Ramsden), a younger woman who works at an artist's desk down the aisle, giving her the paid for engagement ring that he had, having planned to marry each of her six older sisters (Hortense, Irma, Harriet, Margie, Claire, and Rosemary) when they had worked there before her. After cashing his severance check at the personnel office, Harold then leaves the building and wanders out, aimlessly through the streets, with his life's savings in his trouser pocket.
While Harold wanders the streets and looking through the newspaper want ads for another job, he is approached by an older man named Wormy (Jimmy Conlin), a local con artist, petty gambler, and racetrack lout, who asks Harold for a handout of $4 so he can place a bet. Seeing the large amount of cash that Harold has, and hoping to get him drunk enough to acquire some of the cash, Wormy takes the depressed and unemployed Harold to a downstairs local bar for a drink that is just opening for the day. When Harold tells the bartender, Jake (Edgar Kennedy), that he has never had a drink in his life, the barkeep creates a potent cocktail he calls "The Diddlebock", one sip of which is enough to release Harold from all his inhibitions. The effects of the alcohol causes Harold to yowl uncontrollably. Gazing at himself in the bar mirror, Harold suddenly declares himself a loser and races out to remake himself.
A little later, Harold is at a saloon getting his hair cut, his fingernails manicured, his shoes shined, and is trying on a gaudy plaid suit supplied by famed tailor Formfit Franklin (Franklin Pangborn). In the midst of his transformation, Harold overhears Wormy talking with Max (Lionel Sander), a bookmaker's assistant, and impulsively bets $1,000 of his own money on a 15-to-one long shot horse named Emmaline. To everyone's surprise, Emmaline wins, and the now-rich Harold, with $15,000 in his pockets, begins to celebrate all around town.
Some days later, Harold is awakened at home on the couch by his widowed older sister Flora (Margaret Hamilton), who chastises him for his wild, irresponsible behavior and hideous clothes. Unable to remember much about his drunken binge, particularly about what he did on Wednesday which is a total blank, Harold wanders outside to return the plaid suit and is surprised to learn that he now owns a hansom horse-drawn cab and employs an English driver named Thomas (Robert Greig). A worried Wormy then rushes up and informs Harold that, with winnings from a second bet, Harold also bought a bankrupt circus. After a meeting with the animal handlers and circus freaks, Harold first seeks help from the Kitt-Poo Home for Cats to feed the circus' starving lions and tigers. Seeing no future with the ownership of the circus, Harold then gets the idea to sell the circus to a Wall Street banker.
Harold and Wormy visit the circus-loving Wall Street banker Lynn Sargent (Rudy Vallee), but he soon turns their offer down because Sargent himself is trying to unload an unprofitable big-top. When the rest of the city's bankers turn them down and throw Harold and Wormy out of their offices, Harold comes up with another scheme. Harold goes back to the circus while he tells Wormy to go back to the bar and ask the barkeep Jake for another concoction of the "Diddlebock" drink.
With Jackie, a tame circus lion, in tow, Harold and Wormy visit other bankers all over New York and suggest that, to improve their public image, they invest in a free circus for children. Jackie's presence causes a screaming panic. Wormy also brings along a thermos containing the potent Diddlebock drink where they give shots drinks to each of the bankers to get them inebriated to sign over and place bets for ownership of the circus. Things take a turn when the lion gets loose after an elderly and nearsighted banker panics when he sees Jackie, which Harold drops the lion's leash for a few second which Jackie runs out a window, up a fire escape ladder and end up on the ledge of a high-rise skyscraper building. Harold and Wormy are forced to go after Jackie and they both end up on the ledge of a skyscraper window to try to retrieve the lion. After nearly falling to their deaths, the trio is arrested and thrown in jail.
As hoped, Harold's picture appears in all of the city's the newspaper the next day, but it is Miss Otis, not the bankers, who comes to bail him out. Outside the station, when Thomas reveals that the newspaper listed the wrong police station in its story, Harold and Wormy rush to the other station and are relieved to see a mob of bankers there. The bankers bid desperately on the circus, but are quickly outbid by a representative of the Ringling Brothers circus. To celebrate, Harold downs a "Diddlebock." He goes into another relapse.
In the final scene, sometime later, Harold finds himself in his horse-drawn cab with Miss Otis. Although Miss Otis informs him the good news that he received $175,000 for the sale of the circus and has been made an executive at Waggleberry's firm, Harold notices that she is wearing a wedding ring. Miss Otis then reveals that, during his last "Diddlebock" binge, he married her in hast that morning at the city hall. Harold becomes depressed and wants to go back to city hall to annul the marriage, but Miss Otis reassures Harold that she truly loves him. To make her point, Miss Otis gives Harold a big kiss... and he finally remembers what he was doing all day on Wednesday. The final shot shows Wormy tagging along with them by riding on the back bumper of the cab.
The End
