CJBx7 THE FRESHMAN (1925) deals with Harold Lamb's (Harold Lloyd) endeavors to become a popular man on campus, by joining the football team, only to find that the other kids think he's the "college boob". Still, with the support of his girl Peggy (Jobyna Ralston), he manages to show them all what he's really made of. Directed by Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor.This film was one of Harold Lloyd's biggest successes, and is now part of the National Film Registry. THE FRESHMAN represents the culmination of Harold Lloyd's development of his lovable nerd persona – clumsy and awkward, but plucky, full of spirit, and never quits. This had a tremendous appeal to 20s audiences and is still quite endearing today. THE FRESHMAN kickstarted a spate of college-based movies, and many movies to this day use the same kinds of characters – the nerd, the insensitive jock, the girl who sticks by the leading man's side even when no one else believes in him, etc. The movie has some brilliantly constructed gags - just when you think they can't go on any more, Lloyd comes up with something else to amaze you. My favorite is the party in the hotel, which features a dizzy tailor trying in vain to mend Lloyd's tuxedo. Also funny is the scene where Lloyd's character has to make an impromptu speech to his class while wrestling with a cat.Harold plays his character with his typical peppy charm, and Jobyna Ralston makes a nice love interest. Everyone here is effective in his or her roles and the film doesn't wear out its welcome. It's easy to see why this movie was so popular in its time, and it still has lots of comic appeal today. SCORE: 8/10

tavm 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.

Robert J. Maxwell Harold Lloyd, he of the thick round glasses, is a college freshman in 1925, the days of Prohibition, beanies, flappers, the fox trot, and college sweaters with big letters on the chest. It's one of his funnier movies.He's the butt of everyone's jokes from beginning to end, except for the maid of simple taste who loves him. He's mad to be on the varsity football team and the others kid him into believing he's one of them instead of the humble water boy he actually is.Two scenes are especially amusing. The first has Lloyd attending a gala party with newly made evening clothes held together only with basting. This affords him a chance to pull off two hoary but still funny shticks. One is the costume that falls apart piece by piece in public. He pulls it off with a good deal of imagination. His tailor must follow him around at the dance, trying to sew the pieces back on, but the tailor is subject to disabling dizzy spells, forcing Lloyd to search all the men's pockets for a hip flask. I won't describe the rest of the to-do.Another gag at the party involves the hidden hand of someone else extending from the curtain behind Lloyd. I can't even count the number of times this vaudeville bit has been shown on the screen. "I Love Lucy," of course, and "Young Frankenstein." But this is as good as any other example. Lloyd is standing against the curtain, chatting to a co ed, with his right arm slipped back through the separation so the tailor can re-attach a fugitive sleeve. A man comes up and asks to borrow ten dollars. The tailor's hand emerges from the curtain and scratches Lloyd's head while he thinks this over then assents. The fake hand extracts the money from Lloyd's pocket and hands it to the other. The man thanks Lloyd profusely and the fake hand rests on his shoulder while Lloyd's REAL hand extracts the bill from the other guy's pocket and returns it to his own.The second amusing moment comes at the climactic football game with all sorts of shenanigans going on. Does Lloyd the water boy get called in to play? Does he make a lot of foolish errors? Does he finally win the game? No power on earth could get me to tell.Well, I'll mention one example of the silliness. Yes, he's finally called in, and he gallops out onto the field, delivers a furious, uncharacteristic, hapax legomenon of a pep talk, much to the awe of the other players. They assemble. Hike. Lloyd takes the ball and plunges ahead. The other pile on him. As they slowly disperse we see Lloyd flat on his back, his arms outspread, completely unconscious, no football in sight.Lloyd was no Charlie Chaplin. He was probably as good a physical actor but he didn't have Chaplin's genius for either outrageously funny situations, the set ups for them, or Chaplin's sometimes excessive penchant for sentiment. At his most humiliated, Lloyd doesn't look quite as pathetic as Chaplin did.Not to knock Lloyd. He's a fine comedian in his own right, and he put out several riotously funny movies -- this one among them.

JohnHowardReid 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!