Runtime: 82 minutes
Directed by: Ted Wilde… and Harold Lloyd… and Lewis Milestone
Starring: Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston, Walter James, Leo Willis, Olin Francis
From: The Harold Lloyd Corporation
“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, his siblings became jealous, there’s a theft of money set aside to build a town dam, and things escalate.
Throughout, the film is funny at a consistent level. Naturally, what created the laughs won’t be elaborated upon except that one scene features the brothers hiding from Harold & his new girl, and another is Harold hiding from the brothers. The end setpiece in a specific location (featuring a monkey) is a swell conclusion and The Kid Brother is simply a lot of fun, with a dash of heart to boot. It was a pleasant realization that even late in the silent era, Lloyd could still come up with creative setpieces and tremendous gags.
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