Harold Lloyd Corporation

A Harold Lloyd sound comedy directed by Clyde Bruckman. Lloyd plays Harold Horne, a lowly shoe salesman who stows away on a ship to Hawaii to impress a girl, then must bluff his way through a series of escalating lies about his identity. The film's centerpiece is a thrilling skyscraper-climbing sequence that recalls Lloyd's silent masterpiece Safety Last! (1923), this time with the added complication of sound—Lloyd's screams and gasps amplify the vertiginous terror. Though Lloyd's sound films never achieved the critical reputation of his silent work, Feet First demonstrates that his daredevil physical comedy remained intact in the talkie era. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy

Harold Lloyd's first feature as an independent producer, and one of his best. He plays a stuttering, girl-shy tailor's apprentice who writes a bogus advice book on how to woo women, then has to live up to it when he falls for a wealthy girl visiting from the city. The film builds to a celebrated chase in which Harold races a jalopy, a horse, a trolley, and finally a stolen motorcycle (with no driver) through Los Angeles traffic to stop his beloved's wedding. Lloyd's gift was for ordinary-guy heroism, and here the romantic setup and the stunt climax feed each other perfectly. It was the first release from his own Harold Lloyd Corporation. The film entered the public domain in the United States in 2020.

Comedy · Romance · Silent

A Harold Lloyd feature comedy directed by Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor. Lloyd plays a young newlywed whose blissful marriage is complicated when his formidable mother-in-law moves in, followed by her shiftless son and her henpecked husband. The film is structured as a series of domestic comic set pieces, culminating in the famous sequence where Lloyd tries to drive home a carload of groceries while a streetcar full of passengers watches in horror. The film's gentle satire of family life and its expertly staged physical comedy make it one of Lloyd's most charming features. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Silent

A Harold Lloyd short directed by Fred Newmeyer. Lloyd plays a young man who, believing his girlfriend has rejected him for another, decides to end it all. But every suicide attempt fails spectacularly—he can't even jump out a window without landing on a fire escape. The film's masterstroke is a vertiginous sequence on a construction site, where Lloyd dangles from a girder high above the street, a precursor to his famous skyscraper climb in Safety Last! (1923). The film's dark comic premise—suicide as slapstick—is handled with Lloyd's characteristic optimism, as the boy's despair gives way to increasingly inventive physical comedy. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Silent

Harold Lloyd's last silent feature, and a love letter to New York City shot largely on location. Lloyd plays a young man so perpetually in a hurry that everyone calls him "Speedy," who tries to save his girlfriend's grandfather's horse-drawn streetcar from a transit monopoly bent on putting it out of business. The set pieces are built around motion: a wild cab ride to Coney Island, a baseball game at the old Yankee Stadium, and a finale in which Speedy rounds up a crowd of fans to move the horse-car to its barn before a deadline. The location footage of 1920s New York is now a documentary record as much as a comedy. Lloyd produced the film through his own company and retired from silent filmmaking as sound took over. The 1928 film entered the United States public domain on January 1, 2024.

Comedy · Silent

Harold Lloyd plays a small-town boy so primed for college life that he has rehearsed his entrance greeting in front of a mirror for months. He arrives on campus full of pep and immediately becomes the patsy of the football team and the joke of the student body, all while believing he is the most popular man in school. The film builds to a football finale where he finally gets his chance on the field. Lloyd's everyman optimism was never better matched to a story, and The Freshman was one of the biggest hits of the silent era. The glasses character, Lloyd's signature screen persona, is in full form here. Published in 1925, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Comedy · Silent

The Kid Brother is a 1927 silent comedy feature directed by Ted Wilde for the Harold Lloyd Corporation, distributed by Paramount Pictures. Harold Lloyd stars as Harold Hickory, the milquetoast youngest son of a tough sheriff, who gets his chance to prove himself when a traveling medicine show brings con artists to town. The film features some of Lloyd's most thrilling climactic set pieces, including a suspended-from-a-tower sequence. Widely regarded as one of Lloyd's best features. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Adventure

A botanist with an expertise in fingerprints is mistaken for a detective and sent to San Francisco to investigate a Chinatown tong smuggling ring. Harold Lloyd's first talkie, directed by Clyde Bruckman. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Crime