Harold Lloyd became one of the superstars of silent movie comedy playing ambitious wise guys who were eager for success (and ready to bluff and scheme to achieve it) in adventures that tended to play out in the modern city. The Kid Brother (1927) drops him in rural America for a different kind of underdog comedy. Wearing his trademark glasses, Lloyd is Harold Hickory, son of a burly sheriff and sibling of two strapping older brothers—a kind of small-town male Cinderella playing domestic servant while the "men" go to town on business. He’s more earnest here than in his more famous comedies The Freshman and Safety Last! but no less clever, whether he’s masterminding ingenious housework shortcuts or outsmarting his brothers while romancing Mary (Jobyna Ralston), an orphan who loses everything when her medicine show caravan burns to the ground. When his father is disgraced after the town’s savings are stolen from under his nose, scrawny Harold uses his wits to take on real criminals in a fast-paced, gag-filled battle aboard an abandoned ship. The Kid Brother is one of Lloyd’s funniest and sweetest films, a comedy driven by devotion to family and romantic affection and directed by regular Lloyd collaborator Ted Wilde with an eye for the pastoral beauty of the setting. This Criterion edition made from a new 4K restoration features a 1989 orchestral score composed by Carl Davis and an earlier organ score by Gaylord Carter, as well as extras including audio commentary (by filmmaker Richard Correll, author Annette D’Agostino Lloyd, and Lloyd’s granddaughter Suzanne Lloyd), new video essays by critic David Cairns and author John Bengstrom, new and archival interviews, a behind-the-scenes stills gallery, two restored early shorts starring Lloyd, and a booklet with an essay by film critic Carrie Rickey. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)
The Kid Brother
Criterion, 82 min., not rated, DVD: 2 discs, $29.95; Blu-ray: $39.95 Volume 34, Issue 4
The Kid Brother
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