Highly Overrated But Still Good

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

It's clear to see why this film is so well loved - Lloyd the geeky underdog goes to college, wins the football match and wins the girl, providing plenty of laughs along the way. A very fresh faced looking Lloyd here has plenty of naive charm, and produces probably the best performance of his career - his round glasses character being more suited to the college setting than any other.The arrival at college to the first football practice is some of his best material, although things go slightly south after that. His suit falling apart at the ball leans a little too much on the ridiculous, while the football finale is as predictable as they come (though to be fair, he was probably one of the first to do it).Still, the 76 minute run time breezes along and its certainly entertaining.

After several years of only reading about this movie, I finally got to see it from disc 1 of The Harold Lloyd Collection: Vol. 2. In this one, Lloyd dreams of college and becoming popular. But everyone makes fun of him there, unbeknownst to him, except for Peggy (Jobyna Ralston, his frequent leading lady during this time) who he falls for and she does in return. But then comes the chance to do good when the big football game comes into play. I'll stop there and just say that I found this quite funny though not enough to consider it the best of his films, in fact, I think I liked the other of his I saw recently-The Kid Brother-much better. Still, there was plenty to laugh at-the whole suit-falling-apart-at-the-dance had me in stitches-and the climatic football game was highly amusing enough. And, as with the other of his I just mentioned, there was also some nice sentimentality involved. So on that note, The Freshman comes highly recommended. P.S. I highly also recommend listening to the commentary provided by Leonard Maltin, Richard W. Bann, and Richard Correll for their astute observations. And I also loved the score provided by Robert Israel for this version.

B. M. O. C.Friday May 25, 7:00pm, The Paramount TheaterRaccoon coats, rumbleseats, the "football hero" and all the trappings of college life found their way into movie theaters everywhere in the nineteen-twenties. Films like The Plastic Age (1925) and Brown of Harvard (1926) idealized a lifestyle everyone wanted, but few could afford. Who better then the original wholesome, energetic youth, Harold Lloyd, should make the ultimate college comedy? While Chaplin made dinner rolls dance and Keaton fled a thousand brides, Lloyd explored the silliness and cruelty of collegiate popularity in The Freshman (1925). Harold Lamb, (call me 'Speedy!') dreams of college. "He simply can't think of anything else." When he finally arrives at Tate University, "a large football stadium with a college attached." his good-natured but hopelessly old-fashioned attempt to attract friends only makes him the campus joke. He tries out for the football team, but ends up replacing the tackling dummy. "That kid's got a great spirit – I hate to tell him he can't make the team." "Why not keep him on as a water boy – and let him think he's one of the substitutes?" In love with Harold, Peggy (Jobyna Ralston) knows, but can't tell him. He believes his popularity is real, until anger reveals the truth. "You think you're a regular fellow – why, you're nothing but the college boob!" The story ends, of course, with "The Big Game" and Harold scores the winning touchdown, gaining the admiration of his tormentors. What remains unclear is Lloyd's true intent. Is this the satire of a valueless lifestyle, or another story of "boy makes good in the end"? As with most films of this genre, nary a book is cracked, nor a classroom seen. It is, the most heartbreaking of Lloyd's characters, with a bittersweet ending despite several hilarious turns along the way, and Ralston was never sweeter. Among the bits: Harold and Peggy work a crossword puzzle on the train dining car and profess their love (they've just met), or so an eavesdropping old woman thinks. When he discovers how much he enjoys Peggy sewing them back on, Harold cuts the buttons off his cloths. He has a brief but hilarious encounter with "Our Gang's" Petey the pooch. In a wonderfully complex and original scene, Harold hosts a party in a new suit, which is only basted. The tailor comes along and attempts to repair the disintegrating suit, unobserved, while battling his own drunken dizzy spells. Harold runs amuck in UC Berkeley's Memorial Stadium, and his silly dancing handshake is repeated throughout the film.

I have only two strikes against The Freshman. The first is one that both critics and general movie audiences are always happy to accept, namely that Speedy is by far the oldest freshman at Tate University. It always makes me slightly uncomfortable to see a thirty-two-year-old seriously trying to pass himself off as a teenager. Some movies go to a lot of trouble to establish the fact that a mature adult is forced to enlist in a freshman class, and half the fun of the picture of course revolves around that dichotomy. But that situation is obviously not the movie Lloyd wanted to make. He compels us to accept Speedy as a teenager and tries to disguise the problem by surrounding himself with mature upper-classmen and past-retiring-age seniors.This brings me to my second beef. Although the screenplay is still very funny, it's nowhere near as neatly constructed as we expect from Lloyd. Characters are elaborately introduced and then simply dropped. After our lengthy opening "business" with the dean, for example, the man has another short scene and then simply disappears. We don't even spot him at the climactic football match. And what happens to the cad? Is there a scene in which he gets his comeuppance? If so, I don't remember it. And one would expect Speedy's parents to support him at the match. But they don't even bother coming! Hazel Keener looms large in the cast list, but her role is so weakly developed no-one would notice if she were dropped from the credits completely.It's not just the fact that these omissions just don't make sense, it's the fact that opportunities for more intense audience involvement were lost.Fortunately, thanks to Lloyd's comic skills and the expertise of his technical staff, the movie still rates as a little gem. Lovely Joby Ralston is most appealing as the girl in Harold's corner, and Pat Harmon contributes plenty of laughs as the continually frustrated coach (and so tough too that "he shaves with a blowtorch!").Yes, it also must be put on record that the titles are some of the wittiest we've ever seen. Just to read the titles alone is well worth the price of admission: "Do you remember those boyhood days when going to College was greater than going to Congress—and you'd rather be Right Tackle than President?" Yes, indeed!