Harold Lloyd - This is gold folks!!

[RonJonSurfer]

New release shows silent film star's comic legacy By Bob Tourtellotte

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Silent film buffs know him as a rival of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton, but it is unlikely that modern movie fans know much more about Harold Lloyd than his face.

Lloyd is the guy with round glasses and straw hat hanging from a clock on a tower high above the ground, holding on perilously to its hand as it begins to turn down.

That picture from 1923's "Safety, Last!' has become an iconic image of a bygone Hollywood era, but for every laugh a comic like Will Ferrell or Adam Sandler gets in theaters today, they can thank Harold Lloyd of 80 years ago.

His granddaughter, Suzanne Lloyd, is reintroducing the silver screen legend and his movies like "The Freshman" and "Speedy" this month in a new set of DVDs, "The Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection," made from restored films in his personal library.

But her endeavor goes beyond merely selling repackaged movies on DVD. It is about saving a piece of American art and culture for future generations, as well as keeping her grandfather's legend alive.

"He was a highly skilled, inventive artist. He wasn't just a film star; he was a pioneer," Suzanne Lloyd told Reuters.

Lloyd died in 1971, but his famous "boy with the glasses" character lives on in the movies. He was not a tramp like Charlie Chaplin's mustachioed street dweller, and his slapstick was not as outlandish as Buster Keaton's.

Lloyd's boy was a real, everyday guy who fell in love and did things for love that, while always well-intentioned, got him into trouble. His character wore a jacket, trousers and a tie. He kept his nose clean and like any middle-class kid, he longed for fame, fortune and a good-looking gal.

"He really set the template, I guess you could say, for all the romantic comedies that are going on today," Suzanne Lloyd added.

BOX OFFICE PHENOM

"Lloyd's name registers cash," wrote industry paper Movie City News in 1918, and they weren't kidding.

"Safety, Last!," in which Lloyd's boy goes to the city to earn money to send home for his bride, earned $1.58 million at box offices in its day. Now, that would be $205 million.

One year later, "Girl Shy" took in the equivalent of $217 million, and in 1926, "For Heaven's Sake" racked up what would be $294 million in today's dollars.

By Suzanne Lloyd's reckoning, modern moviegoers can look to many current movies for signs of Lloyd's work. In fact, she sued Walt Disney Co. a few years back claiming 1998's "The Waterboy," starring Adam Sandler, was a copy of her grandfather's silent film "The Freshman."

"Because of how fast he moves and how fast-paced the movies are, I think kids really get it," she said of her grandfather.

But even if kids can't find anything to like in the old silent films, there are fans of Lloyd, of movies in general and of Hollywood history who may.

"Film can teach us so much more than the story that is being told," said Michael Pogorzelski, director of the film archive for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

As with classic literature, newspapers or magazine stories, historians now use old movies to gain insight into behavior, mannerisms and morality of a certain time, Pogorzelski said.

RECAPTURING HISTORY

But film restoration is no easy task. It can take years to bring all the elements of an old movie together because one reel of a movie may be stored in one library and another reel to a separate library in a different part of the world.

Restorers look for different elements -- the best sound or color -- then blend them together for a final print at costs that run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars depending a film's age, the technology used to make it and its rarity.

For the 85 films in the Lloyd archive, fans and historians have Lloyd himself to thank. In a foreshadowing of filmmakers to come such as George Lucas, whose company owns the "Star Wars" films he makes, Lloyd purchased the prints and negatives of his movies from his producing partner, Hal Roach.

He was among the first to preserve silent films when they were considered commercial ventures -- not art. After their useful life, hundreds were dumped into oceans or burned.

In another precursor to modern times, Lloyd showed movies to test audiences, then took them back to the editing room and tinkered with them before wide release, Suzanne Lloyd said.

He traveled the world taking three-dimensional photographs of everything from landscapes to pinup girls like Marilyn Monroe and Bette Page.

All those facts are included on the DVDs, which also are filled with glimpses of his life on his 16-acre estate, Greenacres, commentary by historians and critics about his life and work, and a special set of 3-D glasses and photos.

"I hope it does change," said Suzanne Lloyd. "Either you talk to people about Harold Lloyd, and they go back to the clock thing. Or, after they've seen him they say, 'He's brilliant."'