The most important family in Hickoryville is (not surprisingly) the Hickorys, with sheriff Jim and his tough manly sons Leo and Olin. The timid youngest son, Harold, doesn't have the muscles to match up to them, so he has to use his wits to win the respect of his strong father and also the love of beautiful Mary.
Pikkuveli, O kourabies, O mikros mou adelfos, Tagosaku Lloyd Ichiban yari, Niedorostek, Levado da Breca, Младший брат, The Mountain Lad, Der kleine Bruder, Il fratello minore, Harold, der Pechvogel, El hermanito, Lillebror, Öcskös, Le Petit Frère, O Caçula, 小兄弟, 偌小兄弟, 키드 브라더, Braciszek
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After three long hours of listening to my po-faced professor drone on and on about empirical formulas and spectroscopic techniques such as Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. I figured I ought to give myself a break.
To my happy pill, Harold Lloyd, thank you man! I would've gone mad already if it weren't for your films.
One of Harold Lloyd’s very best films. Simply because it works well on a dramatic/narrative level. There are plenty of gags here but also quite a bit of tension and the finale is truly exciting and hard hitting. This is a must-watch for Lloyd fans and fans in general of Silent Movies. The Criterion Blu-ray looks fantastic and has plenty of quality extras. Strong recommendation for both the movie and the Criterion Disc.
Josephine the monkey walked in a sailor suit wearing big shoes so that Betsy in Outbreak could run and spread the virus.
This classic 1927 film starring Harold Lloyd incorporates some of the most brilliantly designed and humorous extended comedy sequences within his filmography. He portrays Harold Hickory, the youngest son of the Sherriff of Hickoryville, who despite having constructed appliances to assist him with his household responsibilities and habitually outsmarting the neighbourhood bully, is repeatedly dismissed by his older brothers and father.
Harold Lloyd’s variety of comedy primarily attempted to converse with the youth and he made his high-spirited personality his representative characteristic, along with imaginative handling of props and the many memorable physical stunts. The Kid Brother has an excellent balancing of both funniness and suspenseful uncertainty which trades on the population of the town being blissfully unaware that Harold Hickory is probably the most inventive individual amongst them, and the crazy climax of the film on an abandoned ship is one of Lloyd’s best moments.
“The Kid Brother” captures the lawless ingenuity necessary to survive in the Frontier.
This rough and tumble survivalism is brought to bear - by the bespectacled Harold Lloyd.
As the runt of Hickory family (residents of Hickoryville), Lloyd’s youngest child wrecks shame on the sacred Hickory name by wasting away his time on marginally useful and mostly impracticable inventions.
Always in the shadow of Keaton and Chaplin, perhaps Lloyd took the struggle of the third child personally. But in “Brother,” he earns his inheritance in silent film legend. Where Chaplin exemplified pathos of the heart, and Keaton spunk of spirit - Lloyd was emblematic of the perpetual optimism of exploration.
It makes him an adept fit for a film set…
“Harold Lloyd on a farm in California” was in fact as charming as I had hoped. A change of pace was needed and the Criterion Channel allowed me to check out this late Lloyd comedy short. It was story-driven but that’s all good when the gags complimented the plot and it didn’t feel like a loosely-connected series of sketches & ideas tied together.
The Hickory family literally run a town in California named… Hickoryville. The sheriff dad and two of his sons are macho, alpha gentlemen while Harold Hickory is exactly as milquetoast and meek as you’d expect a Lloyd character to be. A medicine show comes into town, Harold steals pop’s badge to impress pretty girl Jobyna Ralston. From there,…
100-word review: The youngest son of sheriff Hickory, not as strong as his older brothers, must prove himself using his wits instead. The Kid Brother is a romantic slapstick comedy with western twang. The jokes in the first two-thirds aren’t the funniest silent slapsticks have come up with, but they do have heart. It’s perfectly adorable, albeit recycling its tricks. Ted Wilde saves best for last though with an ever-evolving gags (and thrills) sequence eventuating on a pirate ship no less, even involving a trained monkey in sailor outfit (sad, I know, but damn if it isn’t funny and cute).
Part of the March 2021 March To the West challenge; 2nd out of 10 films.
"Harold, the youngest Hickory, was born on April Fool's Day. The stork that brought him could hardly fly for laughing" -Narrator,
Trained monkey in a sailor suit.
If you haven't yet had the chance to do so I highly recommend playing around in the world of Harold Lloyd. He is not only my favorite silent performer but he is probably one of my 25 or so favorite performers in film history. His movies have tons of heart and really high watchability. Lloyd has the skills to evoke all sorts of emotion with never hearing his voice. He has a great aptitude for physical humor as well as dangerous stunt work. I simply love his movies. In The Kid Brother you…
in harold lloyd’s sundry world “she loves me, she loves me not” daisies are enough to break a fall from the tallest of trees, pirate ships are right at home in the wild west, and the rain is made of jobyna ralston’s tears, and that’s exactly where I want to live.
A J.K. Simmons look-alike and his sketchy pal (along with a cute sailor monkey) steal Hickoryville’s funds for the new dam, and it’s up to Harold Hickory to stop them. As usual, Harold Lloyd plays himself, but his comedy still has range. I’d like to think in these multiple versions of himself, Harold Lloyd is always in another universe being bullied just the same and still having low self-esteem. Likewise, there’s always the same woman (often Jobyna Ralston) giving him the hope and courage he needs, ultimately saving his fate.
Not as strong as Safety Last!, due to a weaker first half, but kids must have loved this one at the time. It’s basically a cinematic game of hide-and-seek punctuated by scenes of tag, and it has one of the greatest animal performances of all time by a monkey in a sailor costume. And the characters are almost cowboys, running around on an almost pirate ship in the best sequence.
Of the three noted legendary comedians of the silent era, Harold Lloyd is the one whose films I'm mostly unfamiliar with: but I plan on changing that soon.
Everything about this story told in The Kid Brother is very simple, very basic, but it also exemplifies everything that Lloyd can bring out at his best. All of those stunts and visual gags are right up to par with the best of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, but I think that's already been said numerous times too. But either way, it's still just really funny from start to finish.
I need to see more of Lloyd's films because from what little I've seen, I'm already in awe.
