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.
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.