The Freshman (1925)

(On Cable TV, September 2019) It’s sometimes amazing to watch much older movies and discover that some narrative forms are near-universal. You could, for instance, see in The Freshman a blueprint for the entire college comedy subgenre, as our hero (Harold Lloyd, playing a younger variation of his usual nebbish bespectacled character) heads to college and throws himself in a desperate quest for popularity … through football. Of course, he has no visible talent for the sport, which leads him to be retained as a joke as a water boy, and then expectedly pushed onto the field for a desperate game-winning moment. Thanks to countless imitators, it’s all very familiar even if you’ve never seen the film itself—and what is not so familiar is fascinating due to the way that college is portrayed in the early 1920s. This is a time of respectable learning institutions (although, noticeably, the film never features the inside of a classroom) being portrayed as places where social standing takes precedence: our hero buys everybody ice cream after making a fool of himself in front of a stage. The comedy is generally successful, although as an early example of a comedy of humiliation, viewers who may not enjoy cringing in sympathy may find those moments of the film limited in effectiveness. Still, Harold Lloyd is his usual likable self, and Jobyna Ralston is quite endearing as the romantic lead. The Freshman revolves around a handful of comic set-pieces, even if some of them drag on for a bit too long. Still, it’s a fun film and an easy watch compared to other silent movies of the era—the comedy and likability of the stars ensure at least a level of interest to the result. Plus, you can see where generations of later college comedies took their inspiration: there isn’t that much of a difference between The Freshman and Old School.