The Kid Brother (1927)

Featuring over 100 large-format photographs from Lloyd’s personal archive of production stills, behind-the-scenes shots and family photos, many printed from the original negatives.

The film career of comic superstar Harold Lloyd spanned from 1912 through 1947, from early silent one-reelers to feature-length sound pictures. The Academy’s new photography exhibition covers the full range of Lloyd’s remarkable career and life, thanks to the donation of his archive by his granddaughter, Suzanne Lloyd.

Harold Lloyd first appeared in Edison Company one-reelers, Mack Sennett’s Keystone comedies, and the Hal Roach-produced “Lonesome Luke” series, in which Lloyd created the title character with a nod to Charlie Chaplin’s “Little Tramp.” But Lloyd didn’t stay in the shadow of Chaplin, or fellow silent comedian Buster Keaton, for very long.

With the invention of his classic character, an average-looking young man who happened to wear large round glasses, Lloyd hit upon a comedic persona that became his trademark. His “everyman” regularly found himself in serious (and hilarious) physical danger through happenstance – and Lloyd always performed his own stunts, whether it meant crashing cars, walking on construction girders, playing college football with the real USC team (in The Freshman) or, most famously, hanging from the hands of a clock tower (in Safety Last!).

Throughout the 1920s his films topped the box office, and in 1923 he started producing his own movies, taking control of all phases of production from scripting to editing. Defying the odds, his successful transition from silent to sound films in 1929 yielded his highest-grossing film ever, Welcome Danger. A founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, he was awarded an Honorary Oscar in 1952 as a “master comedian and good citizen,” a tribute that recognized his abundant charity efforts, particularly for the Shriners. “Out on a Ledge” is a visually stunning, frequently funny and largely unseen window into Lloyd’s life in front of and behind the camera.