The Kid Brother

Harold Lloyd in a western!

Well actually, since there are no bar-room brawls, drunken sherriffs or real gunfights, it's more like Harold Lloyd in half a western.

This homely tale casts Harold against type as the weedy youngest son of a sheriff out in the countryside. There are no death-defying sequences on trams/building sites/skyscrapers (delete as applicable) in this one, but a host of ingenious visual gags, several of which depend upon dressing-up farm animals to look like people. In other words, this one aims more for jokes than excitement.

And having quite recently watched Safety Last!, it's a little odd to then witness Harold playing a character so much less sure of himself. Every time he fleed from an angry local, I couldn't help but think, "Hang on – but this is the guy who last week could support his entire body weight on the fingertips of just one hand!" Consequently, this hero's journey was something I was rooting for all the way!

The Kid Brother takes a little more getting into, but is good, solid Harold, and yet more evidence of why history has rightly remembered his films so highly.