Poker & Pop Culture: Harold Lloyd is Quite the Card as Dr. Jack

When it comes to poker turning up in popular culture, films have long been a favorite context in which to exploit the inherent drama and entertainment potentially produced by a game of cards.

Indeed, poker scenes started appearing on the silver screen not long after the introduction of cinema. We’ve already examined here one of the first “poker movies” ever produced, the 1912 silent short A Cure for Pokeritis. We’ve discussed other examples from the early 20th century, too, most recently the several instances of poker turning up in the comedies of W.C. Fields.

As we carry the story of poker and pop culture forward through the 20th century, there are dozens more examples of filmmakers in a variety of genres using poker as a means to create conflict, advance plots, flesh out characters, increase suspense and further promote themes.

Such examples attest not only to the growing popularity of poker, but also to how flexible poker can be as a narrative element. Poker scenes turn up in light-hearted, farcical comedies, in high-tension, dramatic thrillers, and in practically everything in between.

As a means to explore some of the ways poker can be used to support different kinds of cinematic storytelling, these next few columns will examine three poker scenes from otherwise “non-poker” films, each from different genres — a slapstick comedy from the 1920s, a gritty crime drama from the 1930s, and a classic cowboy western from the 1940s.

A poker game occurring in the middle of a comedy often provides an opportunity for game-related one-liners and jokey exchanges. Of course, in a silent film the laughs have to be produced by other means, such as is demonstrated in the 1922 comedy Dr. Jack starring the great Harold Lloyd.

Lloyd starred in almost 200 films, his career spanning four decades. Like his contemporaries Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, Lloyd often relied on physical comedy and in his films can be seen performing many of his own stunts — including some dangerous ones. (He even once lost a thumb and finger doing one!)

Lloyd was a huge star, with his round eyeglasses every bit as iconic as Chaplin’s mustache. As was the case for many film stars getting their start during the silent era, Lloyd’s ability to convey a variety of exaggerated expressions helped make him a very effective leading man.

His best-known film (and probably his greatest) is Safety Last! from 1923, the one that includes the famous scene of him hanging from the minute-hand of a clock several stories above a city street. Thankfully for Lloyd, that stunt involved some camera magic and the use of a double. Such crazy action sequences were nonetheless a big attraction in his films, sometimes causing audiences to wonder “how did they do that?” amid their …

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