The Kid Brother

   This past December I took a short drive down to Knoxville to see a 16mm screening of the seminal Film Noir “Out of the Past.” The movie was at Central Cinema, a really cool indie theater that opened up last Fall down there. Before the film, there was the added bonus of silent comedy shorts from Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Harold Lloyd. Before the program began, the gentleman hosting it asked those gathered who their favorite of the three were. 

    The majority of the group was all in for Keaton, with a few for Chaplin, and much to my surprise, I was the lone member who cited Lloyd as his favorite. That changed that day, as the Lloyd short that played—and I forget the name of it—got a huge reaction from the crowd. It was a lot of fun seeing Lloyd on the big screen for the first time, and also with an audience. Though Lloyd is my favorite of the silent comedians—with Keaton at a close second—I still haven’t seen a great deal of his existing filmography. 

    Luckily, that list of unseen films diminished last night thanks to The Criterion Collection and their new blu-ray release of Lloyd’s 1927 film “The Kid Brother.” In “The Kid Brother” Lloyd plays the title role, the youngest of three of the Hickory family, whose father is the sheriff of the town Hickoryville. Lloyd’s younger brother is the gentle and milquetoast of the three, with all in the family looking somewhat down on him as being “weak” and “a boy.” 

    Things change when a crooked traveling medicine show rolls into town, with a crooked leader and a strong man, plus the innocent daughter of the show’s founder who doesn’t realize the other two are as bent as a mangled wire. In the end, will it be up to the “weak boy” to save the day and his family’s reputation, and a sizable amount of money the town is investing in a  dam project? 

    “The Kid Brother” brings together Lloyd’s inventive slapstick, action, romance, and drama all into a delightful movie that runs at 82 minutes. The film’s highlight is an amazing fight sequence aboard an abandoned ship where at one point Lloyd drags a “scared of water and can't swim” bully into a small pool to gain the upper hand. That’s rather amazing to see. Criterion’s blu-ray of “The Kid Brother” is also amazing to see. I’ve not seen many silent films with as much depth, sharpness, and clarity in the image as I did on this disc. 

    This blu-ray boasts a brand new 4K restoration created from a 35mm fine-grain struck from the original camera negative. Lloyd preserved much of his films himself, and the many of the elements to his films have weathered the years far better than others. This is truly one of the finest looking silent movies I’ve ever seen in HD. Two musical scores are presented for “The Kid Brother.” The first one is an orchestral score by composer Carl Davis from 1989, the second an organ score from the 1960s by Gaylord Carter—who was Lloyd’s favorite silent film accompanist. 

   A wealth of bonus features are included, first up is an audio commentary from 2005 with Lloyd archivist Richard Correll, film historian Annette D’Agostino Lloyd, and Harold Lloyd’s granddaughter, Suzanne Lloyd. A few video essays and documentaries are included, one looking at Lloyd’s leading ladies, another taking an in-depth look at a gag that comes during the film’s epic ship fight, plus another looking at the film’s shooting locations and what they look like today. 

    Behind the scenes photographs, a tour of Llyod’s vast estate by his granddaughter, a 1962 TV interview with Lloyd, plus two restored shorts—and a look at preserving them—round out the disc. This is another impressive collection by Criterion, continuing a series of Harold Lloyd titles they’ve been releasing for a few years now. Here’s hoping that continues for as much Lloyd as they can get their hands on. Highly recommended—see you next week.