The Kid Brother (1927)

Why it's here:
We needed to beef up on Harold Lloyd after seeing Safety Last!. What I had wanted to include was The Freshman, but despite exhaustive search of all sources available, could not find it. This was a worthy substitute.

Specs:
An hour and 20 minutes, black and white, silent.
It isn't clear to me exactly when the film is set, but it is a Western, probably meant to be in the late 1880s or so.

Our family's average rating (on a scale of 1-10):

7.75 

More about the film and our reaction to it:
How much thoroughly better a viewing experience is a movie like this -- with a plot, good acting, humour and pleasant on-location cinematography -- than a movie who's job it is to simply capitalize on the fact of sound like The Jazz Singer, also released in 1927. Here, Lloyd is a bit more nuanced and interesting a character than he played in Safety Last!. The film isn't quite so hilarious, but its value lies elsewhere.  This is a slower-paced, sweeter, romantic picture. Harold is quite an appealing romantic lead and has great chemistry with his co-star Jobyna Rawlston. Yet it's still funny and full of great slapstick moments.

Harold's "look" doesn't translate well to still photos. When you watch him in a film, he moves with a nice grace and has a fresh, attractive, modern quality to his face. Yet in stills, he usually just looks dorky. Its too bad, because this is probably not winning him scores of modern fans. But he deserves modern fans. His films are really good.

He has another big strike against him, in terms of winning popular support today, and that is a too-protective nature toward his films while he was living and too active a trust with respect to copyrights now. His films were not shown on tv when people my age were growing up (by his choice, as he didn't care for the medium); so now, though people can get them on dvd, most haven't heard of him. And because his estate has actively secured copyrights and kept a tight hold on his material, people can't easily stumble upon videos of his work online -- to get to know and appreciate him. All of this makes him pretty obscure -- I can't find his films at my library nor though Netflix; even if you were inclined to rent his work on Amazon or iTunes (which I am!), you're out of luck.

It might not happen without effort, but if you get the chance to see his work you should.

Iconic shot:

Safety Last (1923)

Why it's here:
A friend who knew about our festival tipped me off to Harold Lloyd. She recommended this one and boy are we thankful. A must see.

Specs:
The film is 70 minutes long, black and white and silent. I hate admitting this, but, although it is copyrighted, we watched it online. It cannot generally be found on Youtube, but I found it on an obscure foreign sort of youtube. (The one problem with trying to spread the word on Harold Lloyd is that his films are hard to find).

Our family's average rating (on a scale of 1-10):
8.25

More about the film and our reaction to it:
Safety Last!, is an amazing movie from 1923 and was a huge hit for our family. From the opening scenes we were hooked, and continued to laugh aloud throughout.

Lloyd has a surprisingly modern quality to him. (Maybe this is underscored by the exceptionally well-preserved film. I understand that Lloyd, unlike many other silent era producers, was meticulous about keeping his original prints stowed away safely). He has a very charming, nerdish appeal, a fantastic ability to express emotion with his face and had our family in stitches with silly gags like avoiding his landlady, who wanted rent, by stuffing arms in coat sleeves, hopping onto coat hooks and pulling legs up and under.

The film is famous for Lloyd's stunning feat of hanging from a clock on the side of a building. Although the value goes far beyond this iconic shot, the whole "climbing up the building" thing is fascinating. First, most basically, it is entertaining comedy. On his way up 16 stories, he encounters children who accidentally drop popcorn on him, birds that torment him in order to get said popcorn, painters stuffing a plank out the window, a mouse that climbs up his pant leg and a weathervane that has it in for him, not to mention the famous clock scene. 

Beyond the thrills of the plot, these climbing scenes give a perspective of historic downtown Los Angeles that is amazing. To anyone with an interest in LA history this would be incredible to watch. Then, there is the obvious fun of wondering "how on earth did they do that!?" Apparently, they were filming high in the air on location downtown in L.A. They built a tower for the camera and a facade/set for the building. According to Lloyd, they built platforms below him with mattresses, just in case. Safety last indeed. 

Maybe the most fascinating question is "why?" It is inconceivable to our modern minds that a major Hollywood picture would put anyone - let alone our star - in such actual peril. The idea that the scenes unfolding in front of you are not, cannot have been, 'faked' (although subject to tricks of perspective and basic editing assistance) and are basically an accurate depiction of people performing -- lends an undeniable thrill to the experience. But what caused people to film such dangerous things for our amusement? I guess, just simply, that they could. Still in in infancy as a medium, film makers were still working out what cinema was going to be, how it would be used to tell a story and what, if anything, was off-limits.

At this time in history there were minimal safety codes, controls on film content, or regulations on working conditions. What got made seems to be a function of what someone could dream up. The sky's the limit. And with this picture, that is quite literally the case.

Iconic shot: