Today Harold Lloyd's fame as one of the top film comics of the silent era rests largely on his two most often-screened films, Safety Last (1923) and The Freshman (1925). But many film critics and Lloyd admirers rate The Kid Brother as one of his very best, arguably a masterpiece, and probably his most accomplished all-around performance. Even critics who rate Lloyd below Chaplin or Keaton because they find his films mechanical and lacking in human feeling point to this movie as the exception, an exciting, funny, and touching work that depends on acting and story line more than daredevil stunts.
The Kid Brother, a male Cinderella story, finds Lloyd as Harold, youngest son of the backwoods Hickory clan, treated with contempt by his brutish father and brothers because he's timid and sensitive. Though unappreciated by his family, he's also a clever young man, demonstrated by the way he comes up with various Rube Goldberg-like devices to help him complete his huge burden of farm chores. Harold falls for lovely Mary Powers, who moves in with his family after her traveling medicine show burns down. When thugs from the show steal the town's money, Harold's father is accused. Then the mistreated young drudge springs into action, using his brains rather than brawn to impress his family and outwit the crooks in a hilarious sequence of chases and gags until he restores his father's good name and wins the heart of his girl.
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