When discussing great silent movie comedic actors, three names invariably come up: Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd. Lloyd has been relegated to third genius status for so long that a television documentary about him in 1989 was titled “Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius.” Suzanne Lloyd, his granddaughter and co-executive producer of that documentary, has worked tirelessly since Lloyd’s death to not only protect his works but promote them, bringing a wider recognition of his achievements to the world. At Cinequest this year, she presided over an event in his honor which included a double feature of Lloyd films (“Safety Last” and “Movie Crazy”), a Q&A, and a screening of some home movies made on the Lloyd estate.
Suzanne was raised by her famous grandparents at their Beverly Hills estate, Green Acres. After Lloyd’s death, she inherited most of his films, and has been working since then to restore them and put new scores to the silent films. Now, after many years of those films being virtually unavailable except at the Stanford Theater, Lloyd fans can look forward to a real resurgence of his work. This year alone, there will be a boxed set of DVDs of 31 Lloyd films, a theatrical release of fifteen features, and the Turner Classic Movie channel will be running a marathon of his films in April, then running them off and on all year. As Suzanne put it, “this will be really great, Harold’s going to have a really big year.”
Suzanne says that her grandfather “hated seeing his movies on television because he hated having them broken up with commercials — it would ruin the pace. DVDs are perfect for him, Turner Classic Movies is perfect for him.” She is also planning to remake “Safety Last” with Mark Gordon (whose credits include “Saving Private Ryan” and “The Day After Tomorrow”) producing. The film is currently in pre-production. This week she will also start a new documentary on her grandfather.
Harold Lloyd very much an independent filmmaker. He owned his own studio and kept his crew on salary at all times, which enabled him to have top-notch home movies filmed at the drop of a hat. He often called his crew in to do home movies so they would keep in practice and the 35mm films shot by them are a wonderful look at his home life.
Lloyd also broke new ground in a number of cinematic areas. He essentially invented the test screening, showing his films in small towns outside Los Angeles to test audience reaction and then made changes to improve the movies. His camerawork was constantly breaking new ground, both in terms of hardware and camera angles. In fact, the famous chariot scene in “Ben Hur” copied the below-ground camera angle from one of Lloyd’s films. He was also the first person to shoot on location, and embraced both color and sound as soon as they became available. Indeed, some of the test footage shot by Technicolor was done on Lloyd’s estate, and that footage will be available as a bonus feature in the DVD set. It’s easy to see why Cinequest, which focuses on mavericks filmmaking, chose to have a tribute to Lloyd.
With a big year ahead, Harold Lloyd’s star is clearly on the rise once again. His appeal is universal: “he helps kids, he’s kind to dogs,” Suzanne Lloyd says, “he’s always very kind but also very resourceful.” Lloyd’s films are always a hit with children, as well, so families will doubtless want to keep a sharp lookout for his films.