STATE LIBRARY NSW-22 February 2025-The Kid Brother (1927)

restored silent comic masterpiece with live music (Graeme Costin), 82 minutes.
Tickets: $30/$25  
General seating - not reserved or numbered
(T 0419 267 318)

When a traveling medicine show rolls into town, it brings with it excitement, the possibility of love, and a chance for Harold to prove his mettle. Deftly balancing brilliant sight gags and thrilling set pieces, his mild-mannered underdog hero, too bashful to speak to the pretty girl and too slight to take on the brawny bullies.

The film balances humour, sentiment, and action in a well-crafted story full of rip-roaring thrilling action scenes that power the film to its emotionally satisfying denouement.

The film’s blend of slapstick and sentiment is perfectly captured in this superb demonstration of Lloyd’s mastery of physical comedy and athletic skill. A leading critic accurately described this member of the triumvirate of silent comedy thus, “The “overriding virtue” of his work is that it is “simply and consistently more hilarious than the work of any contemporary other than Keaton.””

He knew how to introduce elements of menace and peril into his comedies in a way that revealed the vulnerabilities of his iconic “glasses” character. In what many critics consider his most fully realized work, audiences are drawn to the film’s charming vignettes, the breadth of its scope and the delicacy of its tone. Suspense, slapstick bravado and a show-stopping monkey made this most perfect silent cocktail a hit at the box office and with audiences across.