Reviews

I viewed this film one evening with about four other folks in the theater, which is kind of too bad. Its straight-faced silliness perhaps did not bring on belly laughs, but it did have me grinning throughout. Which might be the higher compliment.

There are some films that have no chance to be really much good. Extremely low budgets account for most of these films. Out of the higher budgeted films that I consider really, really awful, Videodrome might be on the top of the "pile". ("The Choirboys" might give it a run for its money) Wow, this film just plain stinks. I'd be more graphic but I have to follow IMDb guidelines.

I saw this film with a pal over twenty years ago at the theater, first-run. I sat there amazed at how wincingly terrible it was from start to finish. After about forty-five minutes my friend (who was a drama student at the time) wanted desperately to leave the theater. I refused, explaining that in the years to come we would both look back at this film as a standard for cinema awfulness. I was right.

This film, a Thornton Wilder play, is about how many of the unnoticed details of day-to-day life are sweet and, in fact, ARE life. The Aaron Copeland music sprinkled through the film is lovely and fits the mood perfectly. The contrived ending (not part of the stage play) does not help the film, but by no means does it ruin it, either.

As for silent films, I consider "The Kid Brother" every bit as good as Chaplin's "The Gold Rush" or Keaton's "The General" and not too far behind "City Lights", in my mind, the ultimate silent masterpiece. To me it's Harold Lloyd's best and why it isn't more well-known to fans of old movies, I don't know.