Jandy Hardesty’s review published on Letterboxd:
Film 14 for the Letterboxd Season Challenge. The other films I plan to watch for the challenge are here.
Week 14: Silent Comedy
Challenge: Watch an unseen silent comedy feature starring Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, or Harold Lloyd.
I have most of Chaplin and Keaton under my belt, but even if I hadn't, I probably would've jumped at this encouragement to see another Lloyd film, as he's quickly becoming a favorite of mine.
In this one, he's the youngest son of a sheriff in a small western town (time period is indeterminate, but there are no cars, so it's presumably period to some degree), and treated as a helpless kid by his brawny father and brothers. They're introduced pulling heavy logs up a hill on a chain, then dead-lifting one the rest of the way when the chain breaks; he's introduced churning laundry and setting it out to dry. But this very intro is telling, as he's worked out a quite ingenious method to wash the clothes already tied to a line, then pull the line and clothes through the wringer, then straight out to dry. That ingenuity is repeated over and over throughout the film as Harold innately uses his brains to overcome brawnier adversaries.
In fact, for a good bit of the time, the film plays more like an action film than a comedy. There are a lot of quick sight gags, especially as Harold tries to hide from antagonists and his hiding places are uncovered (usually just to us). Good editing and timing makes these sequences work even though they're pretty straightforward from a comedy perspective.
Toward the end, of course, Harold has to step up when he ends up being the only one who can capture a robber and prove that his father didn't steal the money the townsfolk put up for a new dam. This sequence is quite tense, as the robber has already been shown as an amoral and dangerous man (he quite blatantly threatened the girl Harold falls for), and whereas most comedy films continually undercut the danger our hero is in, there's little doubt that getting caught by this robber would be really bad news for Harold.
I've noticed this tendency toward action over comedy in other Lloyd films as well - most of his chase sequences include gags and over the top elements (the nearly exhaustive series of vehicles he uses in the climax of Girl Shy, for example) that keep them comedic, but also ratchet up the thrills to a degree that even Keaton doesn't usually quite reach. Perhaps it's part of Lloyd's eager, go-getter attitude - whereas Keaton often feels like he's moving through a hostile world without ever really being part of it, Lloyd's persona involves conquering his world and proving he DOES belong in it, despite his wiry frame.
Though The Kid Brother didn't charm me quite as much as Girl Shy or For Heaven's Sake, it's still quite solid and I appreciated the strong story that was a lot more than just an excuse for gags.
After watching a film, I always rank it on Flickchart, a movie website that pits movies against each other until you form your ranked list of favorite movies. Here's how The Kid Brother entered my chart:
The Kid Brother > Meet John Doe
The Kid Brother > It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
The Kid Brother < Edward Scissorhands
The Kid Brother < Divided We Fall
The Kid Brother < Aladdin
The Kid Brother < Triumph of the Will
The Kid Brother > Why We Fight: Prelude to War
The Kid Brother > The Lego Movie
The Kid Brother < Terribly Happy
The Kid Brother < The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
The Kid Brother < House of Flying Daggers
The Kid Brother < Hair-Raising Hare
Final ranking #849 out of 3565