The Freshman. 1925. USA. Directed by Fred Newmeyer, Sam Taylor. Screenplay by John Grey, Taylor, Tim Whelan, Ted Wilde. With Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston, Pat Harmon. 35mm. Silent, with musical accompaniment. Approx. 75 min.
“It was after he assumed horn-rimmed glasses in 1917 that Harold Lloyd developed his own ingenuous type of character-comedy, first in a number of one and two reel films and then in the full-length Grandma’s Boy and Safety Last. The Lloyd character, a typical American country boy, always struggles eagerly to adapt himself to the circumstances more complex and more sophisticated than are natural to him. In The Freshman, the Lloyd motif is worked out with especial perfection, and its satire on undergraduate ambition remains as fresh as it is goodnatured.”