MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Truly the first comedian on the big screen who appeared in more than 200 films and endlessly shared his comic genius with the masses. Herein lie three volumes of eternal film shorts and features by this celebrated silent legend whose comedic appeal crossed over the generations to delight people of all ages. 7 DVDs. 1919–36/b&w/24 hrs., 2 min/NR/fullscreen.

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 7
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 (Pre-1954 Standard)
• Audio: Dolby Digital Mono
• Screen: Black and White
• Subtitle: Spanish, English
• Features:
  • cc
  • Introductions from film critic and historian Leonard Maltin
  • Tributes and interviews with family, friends and legendary celebrities including Debbie Reynolds, Robert Wagner, Tab Hunter and director John Landis
  • Rare, vintage Harold Lloyd interviews and home movies
  • Narrative chronology detaling the life and times of Harold Lloyd, hosted by Leonard Maltin
  • Video biographies of many of Harold Lloyd's collaborators and stars of the golden age of cinema
  • Photo and publicity galleries including 3-D photos shot by Harold Lloyd himself (3-D glasses included)
  • Harold Lloyd's Academy Award speech
  • USC's Delta Kappa Alpha tribute to Harold Lloyd hosted by Jack Lemmon and Steve Allen
  • Radio shows
  • And more!

AWARDS

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

•     Nominated Best Comedy Direction - 1927- (Ted Wilde)

• Library of Congress

•     Won U.S. National Film Registry - 1993
•     Won U.S. National Film Registry - 1989

• Telluride Film Festival

•     Film Presented - 2001
•     Film Presented - 1984

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Director:

  Fred Newmeyer, Sam Taylor, Hal Roach, Alfred Goulding, Leo McCarey, Lewis Milestone, J.A. Howe, Ted Wilde, Clyde Bruckman

• Producer:

  Hal Roach, Harold Lloyd, Adolph Zukor, E. Lloyd Sheldon, Jesse Lasky

• Screenwriter:

  Hal Roach, Sam Taylor, Tim Whelan, Sr., Ted Wilde, Frank R. Butler, Grover Jones

• Play Author:

  Lynn Root

• Screenwriter:

  Richard Connell

• Play Author:

  Harry Clork

• Screenwriter:

  Howard J. Green, John Wesley Grey, Lex Neal, Jean Havez, Clyde Bruckman

• Screen Story:

  John Grey

• Screenwriter:

  Felix Adler

• Screen Story:

  Alfred A. Cohn

• Screenwriter:

  Paul Gerard Smith, Harold Lloyd, Howard Emmet Rogers, Agnes Christine Johnston, Vincent Lawrence, Frank Terry, John Grey

• Cinematographer:

  Walter Lundin, Henry Kohler, Henry N. Kohler, Alfred Gilks

• Composer (Music Score):

  Alfred Newman

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  Alfred Newman

• Composer (Music Score):

  Jesse Greer

• Editor:

  Fred Guiol, Bernard W. Burton, LeRoy Stone, Allen McNeil

• Art Director:

  Fred Guiol, Harry Oliver, Hans Dreier, Bernard Herzbrun, Liell K. Vedder, William MacDonald

• Set Designer:

  A.E. Freudeman

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Earl S. Hayman

• Makeup:

  Wally Westmore, Max Asher

• First Assistant Director:

  Harry Scott, Robert A. Golden

• Intertitle Writer:

  H.M. Walker, Albert E. DeMond, Ralph Spence

• Choreography:

  Larry Ceballos

• Production Manager:

  John L. Murphy

• Short Story Author:

  Tommy Gray, Clarence Budington Kelland

REVIEWS:

• The Cat's Paw is not a bad film (in spite of the use of racial epithets that may have been acceptable in 1934, but aren't today). Harold Lloyd, however, made a serious misstep when he decided to bring Clarence Buddington Kelland's novel to the screen. Instead of merely taking the story's basics and then making it his own, Lloyd decided to conform his approach to the story. The result is just not a Harold Lloyd film -- in fact, out of any of the leads, he seems somewhat miscast as Ezekiel Cobb, the naïve young missionary who brings Chinese honor and philosophy to a graft-filled California town. Lloyd could have made the character his own -- he certainly had played odd young men in his silent pictures -- but he didn't, and he couldn't quite fit himself into the character the way Kelland had written it. This miscasting is especially noticeable because Una Merkel and George Barbier fit their roles so well -- both were actually inspired casting choices. The truth is that Cobb, as he is presented here, could have very well been done better by one of the comedians whose careers flourished in the talkie era -- someone like Eddie Cantor, perhaps. Lloyd could have made far better use of his personality and comic talents if he had given the film his usual assortment of gags. As it stands, The Cat's Paw is a good enough comedy that could have been much, much better. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi
• Harold Lloyd's most successful silent feature, The Freshman (1925) satirizes 1920s college life, the all-consuming campus passion for football, and movie-made fantasies through the comic misadventures of Lloyd's eponymous character. As a bespectacled nerd who yearns for nothing more than collegiate popularity, Lloyd's frosh discovers that a jig he saw in a movie doesn't have quite the same social effect in real life, leading to his attempt to join the revered football team. Displaying his athletic and comedic skills for mining humor out of physical punishment, Lloyd becomes the team's target for practicing tackles before his optimistic yet oblivious striver gets his longed-for chance in (what else?) the Big Game. An enormous hit for the phenomenally popular "third" master of silent comedy, The Freshman inspired Lloyd and 1940s master of sound comedy Preston Sturges to explore what happened to the momentarily triumphant Harold after college in The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947); The Freshman's simultaneously hilarious and rousing football climax serves as Sturges's prologue two decades later. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
• Harold Lloyd wound up disliking this silent feature after he completed it. Since it falls between two of his superior works -- The Freshman and The Kid Brother -- it does pale in comparison. Nevertheless, For Heaven's Sake is a very good example of Lloyd's gag-filled comedic style. Perhaps one of the reasons Lloyd didn't care for the film was that it was particularly difficult to make. The story line changed quite a bit from its original concept, which revolved around crime and political corruption, and even coming up with a title for it was a chore. Lloyd considered it a weak follow-up to The Freshman, even though it made almost as much money. But there's a sweetness and simplicity to this comedy that gives it a lot of charm. The plot is practically nonexistent -- wealthy Harold Meadows (Lloyd) unwittingly helps found a mission run by Brother Paul (Paul Weigel) and, because he falls in love with the missionary's pretty daughter Hope (Jobyna Ralston), works hard to make it a success. That's it. This bare structure, however, is filled out with a lot of fun. Most memorable is the near-flawless sequence in which Harold is trying to get the neighborhood hoodlums to attend services: he accosts and annoys the thugs one by one until he has a huge crowd of them pursuing him, right into the mission. Just as funny is the end chase. A group of the converted thugs invade Harold's fancy club and rescue him from his well-meaning friends, who have kidnapped him to keep him from marrying Hope. Now Harold has his hands full keeping track of the drunken, out-of-control rowdies and getting them back to the mission in time for the wedding. With brilliant scenes such as these, there's absolutely no reason to belittle For Heaven's Sake -- it's a quality feature. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi
• One of the "problems" with Harold Lloyd's best movies is picking out a "best" among them -- there's an embarrassment of riches to be found in at least half-a-dozen (and this writer would add The Milky Way to the usual list of silent candidates). But The Kid Brother may just stand out in front of the others, with its mix of action sequences and drama amid the comedy. It's got a knowing wit about it, as a "rural drama" at a time when such works were already an object of parody, that adds an additional humorous edge to its impressive array of gags, stunts, and cliffhanger plot elements. Obviously, much of the credit for the movie's success resides with Lloyd himself, and also the presence of Jobyna Ralston as his leading lady, but some recognition must be given to Lewis Milestone, whose career as a comedic director was reaching its peak in 1927 (he would win his first Oscar for Two Arabian Nights, made that same year). In those days -- as distinct from later on, when he slowed down as a director -- he knew how to move a story along, and on The Kid Brother Milestone (one of three directors here) does just that, incorporating a huge amount of plot in 83 minutes. Not that the plot ever gets in the way, or slows down the comedy.... ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi
• Safety Last (1923) pokes fun at the lengths that a 1920s man would go to to be a success, and it's also the movie in which Harold Lloyd's trademark "comedy of thrills" produced the timeless image of Lloyd's dangling precariously from a clock above a busy city street. A formidable athlete, Lloyd mined humor from a relentless series of situational and physical gags involving the efforts of his ambitious sales clerk to make it in the big city and impress his girlfriend back home. The famed climax arrives when Lloyd is forced to scale the high rise department store himself after his "human fly" publicity gambit goes awry. As he hangs off the clock 10 floors above the street, he encounters a new difficulty at every story, turning the climb into a hilarious and breathtaking physical feat. Lloyd performed most of the stunts himself (despite having lost his right thumb and forefinger in an accident) and without trick photography. One of a series of Lloyd feature hits, Safety Last helped him surpass fellow comics Buster Keaton and Charles Chaplin in box-office popularity and become a 1920s icon. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
• Directed by Leo McCarey and produced by and starring Harold Lloyd, The Milky Way is one of the most finely etched and precisely paced comedic romps ever to grace the screen, and a dazzling showcase not only for Lloyd, but also for the entire cast. Naturally, he is the star and the main spark plug for the film, but Veree Teasdale as Ann Westly, Gabby Sloan's smart, long-suffering fiancée, steals most of the scenes that she's in with a wisecracking gem of a performance, like Eve Arden with a sharper edge; Adolphe Menjou's Gabby Sloan is a manic whirlwind of neurotic tics and apoplexy-in-the-making; William Gargan and Lionel Stander as the middle-weight champion and his stooge make a boundlessly funny dumb-and-dumber duo (Stander was so good in the part of the stooge that he repeated it in the Danny Kaye remake The Kid From Brooklyn a decade later); finally, Helen Mack and Dorothy Wilson are refreshing and delightful as two young women who are smarter than most of the men around them and not afraid to show it. The screenplay, by Frank R. Butler, Richard Connell, and Grover Jones, is a marvel of verbal and physical humor in perfect balance, while McCarey pulls it all together seamlessly as a vehicle for Lloyd's eager-beaver, go-getter screen persona. The first time he saw it, this reviewer almost hurt himself laughing at the scene where Lloyd's Burleigh Sullivan explains how the champion came to be knocked out, and most of the movie is just a few notches off from that sequence. The Milky Way wasn't a huge success when it was originally released, but over six decades it has retained its comedic edge and its charm where many other celebrated comedies of the period have faded -- and today, along with The Freshman, Safety Last, and Mad Wednesday, it's essential viewing for anyone who wants to appreciate Harold Lloyd's work, and for any fan of classic screen comedy. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi
• What separated the three great silent comedians -- Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd -- from the rest was their ability to create truly memorable characters. Combine this with a good story and great gags and it results in pictures like The Kid, Our Hospitality and this picture. Grandma's Boy was Lloyd's first true feature-length film, albeit a short one -- a runs a scant five reels, or 49 minutes. 1921's A Sailor-Made Man, at four reels, was more of an extended short. Like A Sailor-Made Man, Grandma's Boy began as a two-reeler that just kept on growing. The extra length was completely valid, as it gave Lloyd the ability to explore all the colors of the plot and, for the first time, really build on his "glasses" character. The first ten minutes are used to construct a solid foundation for Sonny (Lloyd), the cowardly young man, and gives the audience time to identify with him. We're shown that Sonny is easily bullied by his rival (Charles Stevenson) for the girl Mildred Davis). By the time the rival dumps poor Sonny in the well, we are on his side completely. Another strong character -- and the real love of Sonny's life -- is his old granny (Anna Townsend), frail looking but with a backbone of steel. It's Grandma who builds up Sonny's courage by giving him the "magic charm of Zuni," which she says was used by his Grandpa in the Civil War. It's gratifying to watch Sonny transform from wimp to hero as he defeats the killer tramp (Dick Sutherland) that is terrorizing the little rural village in which he lives, then to see him fight it out with his rival, ultimately dumping him in the very same well. It's even more gratifying to watch Sonny come to the realization that the charm was a fake and that he performed all these feats himself. Since Lloyd's characters are normal, everyday guys, as opposed to, say, Mack Sennett's grotesque-looking comics, the audience is able to warmly embrace them as their own. The early 1920s marked an important time in comic filmmaking, as Lloyd, Chaplin and Keaton all made this leap from mere caricature to true character. After that, comedy never looked back. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi
• In spite of thin characterizations and a slip of a plot, Harold Lloyd's last film for Hal Roach is one of his funniest features. Its gags are especially inspired, and while Lloyd's character, the wealthy hypochondriac Harold Van Pelham, is pretty much one-dimensional, it's still a fine satirical commentary on American attitudes and ideals. Lloyd's "glasses" character, which he played in every film he made after 1917, is the quintessential 1920s American -- earnest, often a brash go-getter and able to overcome any obstacle with energy and ingenuity. But there's also a dark side underneath these attributes, which includes selfishness, self-centeredness and a sense of entitlement. In Why Worry? Lloyd turns these disagreeable traits into a source of amusement -- when informed that the country he is visiting is in the midst of a revolution, Van Pelham waves it off with, "Tell them to stop it. I came down here for a rest." Van Pelham, however, is quite likable in spite of his pompous behavior; at heart he's a well-meaning soul. While he thoughtlessly takes his pretty nurse (Jobyna Ralston) for granted, he's also obviously -- and unabashedly -- in love with her, and she with him. Many of the best comic moments involve the relationship between the millionaire and the giant Colosso (John Aasen, a 503-pound, eight foot, nine inch gent who was found in Minneapolis after a nationwide hunt). The giant becomesVan Pelham's willing slave and helps quell the annoying revolution by throwing soldiers around like dolls -- Van Pelham, meanwhile, is rooting around amongst the unconscious, unsuccessfully searching for a pair of shoes that fit his tender feet. In spite of the cultural and technological advances over the decades, Americans don't see themselves much differently than they did in the roaring 20s. Maybe this explains why Lloyd's comedies have weathered the years so well -- Why Worry? in particular because it even inspires Americans to laugh at their own foibles. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi
• This Harold Lloyd comedy is really two films in one, with the chase during the last couple of reels overwhelming the sweet storyline which gives it life. While Lloyd's characters often start off as timid and bashful, there is none more backward than Harold Meadows, the stuttering young tailor's assistant who can't even hold a coherent conversation with a girl, much less woo one. Improbably, Harold has been spending his nights working on a book called The Secrets of Making Love. While taking a train to the big city to hand his tome over to a publisher, a miracle happens -- he meets a real, live girl, the wealthy Mary Buckingham (Jobyna Ralston), and a lovely romance ensues. But Harold realizes he has nothing to offer Mary -- that is, unless he sells his book. So when Harold discovers that it has made him the laughing stock of the publishing firm, he knows he must cut her loose. In a truly heart-breaking scene Harold brazenly tells Mary that their romance was merely research for his writing. As a result, she accepts the marriage proposal of the slimy, insistent Ronald DeVore (Carlton Griffin). However, luck suddenly turns in Harold's favor when one of the readers at the publishing company suggests that the public would no doubt find his book as funny as the office workers do. The publisher agrees and sends Harold a hefty (for 1924) advance check. Harold receives it on the same day that Mary is marrying DeVore who, it turns out, is a sleazy bigamist. So Harold dashes out of the tailor's shop to save his girl -- right into a classic chase sequence that is almost as well-known as the climb in Safety Last. After a number of false starts, Harold is on his way to the church, and the timing of his mad dash by car, trolley, motorcycle, carriage and horse is both precise and wildly funny. In a scene that clearly inspired the end of 1967's The Graduate, DeVore is just about to slip the ring on Mary's finger when Harold shows up at the church. His stuttering keeps him from explaining his presence, so he just picks up Mary and runs off with her. Once they are alone, she quickly accepts his marriage proposal. While not one of Lloyd's best features, Girl Shy has a special charm and a good amount of it is due to the chemistry between the star and Ralston. This was only her second picture with Lloyd, but she already works well with him. While Bebe Daniels shone a little too brightly and Mildred Davis (who Lloyd married) didn't have enough luster, Ralston effectively combined a pretty face with an underlying sexuality that made her a great foil for Lloyd. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi