One Of The Top Three Comedic Geniuses Of The Silent Film Era? F*** Yeah! This Tumblr was launched in Harold's birth month of April with love and respect in 2010. (Formerly known as Safety-Last.)
April 20, 1893 - March 8, 1971 Harold Lloyd ranks alongside Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton as one of the most popular and influential film comedians of the silent film era. Lloyd made nearly 200 comedy films, both silent and "talkies", between 1914 and 1947. He is best known for his "Glasses Character", a resourceful, success-seeking go-getter who was perfectly in tune with 1920s era America.
After filming Safety Last! Harold married his leading lady, Mildred Davis in 1923, and they raised three children together. Harold bought several acres of land in Beverly Hills in the 1920s and had a fabulous estate constructed there, built to all his artistic and creative specifications. He named it Green Acres, and it was a beloved home for him and his family until his death in 1971.
Harold Lloyd continues to be recognized as one of the three supreme geniuses of silent film comedy. His appeal in his heyday was different than any of his contemporaries, for his character, the optimistic plucky young man who smiled and fought his way through all adversity, mirrored his audiences in outward appearance and in inward determination, in a way that no other comedian ever did.
His best known pose - dangling from the hands of a clock, several stories in the air - is just one of a host of vivid images that the Lloyd audience member comes away with. It has been said that, once you see a Lloyd film, you want to see another. Harold was an innovator in the movie business. He pioneered new camera techniques and was one of the first filmmakers to preview his comedies to a test audience, and then re-shoot, re-cut and preview them again. At a time before unions, Harold paid his crew year-round, even when they werent shooting a film.
In 1924, Lloyd became the independent producer of his own films. These included his most accomplished mature features Girl Shy, The Freshman, The Kid Brother, and Speedy, his final silent film. All of these films were enormously successful and profitable, and Lloyd would eventually become the highest paid film performer of the 1920s. Of all the silent film comedians, Harold Lloyd was the most profitable. His films out grossed the movies of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, and he made more films than both of them put together.
They were also highly influential and still find many fans among modern audiences, a testament to the originality and film-making skill of Lloyd and his collaborators. Like other great silent comics, Lloyd was the driving creative force in his films, particularly the feature-length films.. From this success he became one of the wealthiest and most influential figures in early Hollywood.
If you've never seen a Lloyd film, I hope this blog inspires you to do so, and if you're already a Lloyd fan I hope this blog will be a fun place for you to visit. His movies are all so inspiring, uplifting and fabulous, it's truly an honor to do tribute to them here.
Harold's Tumblr is curated with love, by Moth Girl Wings
It is a secondary sub-blog and can't follow back.
Happy Birthday, Harold Clayton Lloyd (April 20th, 1893 - March 8th, 1971)
“My humor was never cruel or cynical. We just took life and poked fun at it. We made it so it could be understood the world over, without language barriers. We seem to have conquered the time barrier, as well.”
Happy Birthday, Harold Clayton Lloyd (April 20th, 1893 - March 8th, 1971)
“Laughter is the Universal language. It establishes a common identity among people - regardless of other differences. It is the sweetest sound in the whole world.” - Harold Lloyd
The Boy writes to The Girl before starting work. Scene from SAFETY LAST filmed in the “Chaplin-Keaton-Lloyd Alley,” as identified by John Bengtson, author of SILENT VISIONS: DISCOVERING EARLY HOLLYWOOD AND NEW YORK THROUGH THE FILMS OF HAROLD LLOYD. John’s campaign to give the alley a name and cultural landmark status is described here:
https://silentlocations.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/honor-the-chaplin-keaton-lloyd-alley.pdf
Hi! I am currently researching Harold Lloyd as part of a documentary I am working on about a club he was a part of named the Uplifters. Do you have any images of his time with them or know anything about his involvement?
I’m sorry, I don’t know too much about this - let me do some research and get back to you. Thanks for the question. That’s great you are working on a documentary about him!
Harold Lloyd descends and ascends in Ask Father (1919)
This was actually the same exact building used in the beginning of the climbing sequence in “Safety Last” (1923), and was the first of Lloyd’s silent films to use this device. Lloyd did all his own climbing in this one.
By the age of seven Bebe Daniels had her first starring role in film as the young heroine in A Common Enemy. At the age of nine she starred as Dorothy Gale in the 1910 short film The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. At the age of fourteen she starred opposite film comedian Harold Lloyd in a series of Lonesome Luke two-reel comedies starting with the 1915 film Giving Them Fits. The two eventually developed a publicized romantic relationship and were known in Hollywood as “The Boy” and “The Girl.
origamiaround
romaincrisis
andulkaphoto
ellievsbear
discoholicmusic
2087
snowghoul
stormborns
