Michael's Movie Grade: A+
Review: Incredible film, silent comedy doesn't come any better than this.
Harold Lloyd liked to say he made two types of pictures, gag films, and character films. While both are easily defined as comedies and all full of gags, the difference is in what propels the story. In a gag film the story is propelled by the gags. In a character film the story is propelled by the characters and so are the gags. The Freshman is tied for Harold's best character film with The Kid Brother. Everything is done near perfectly here. There is no possible way you could not grow to love this character. Harold Lamb feels s real in a way many other silent comedy characters don't. We see how devoted this guy is and how much he truly believes that he can do, Because of this we want this character to wind up on top we fully wish for it. It is often brought up that a scene in The Max Brother's A Night At the Opera in which the villain attacks Harpo with a bullwhip makes us like Harpo and hate the villain. This is done to a much more extreme extant here as we see poor Harold suffer ridicule after ridicule. However it is never done to an extant that makes it feel silly or overdone. This always feels real, because Harold Lamb is so real to us.
However with all this going on the film still manages to be very funny. The dance scene, the tackle scene and the climatic football game are all amazing comedic set pieces that I can't see how anyone couldn't laugh at. In fact the football game was so funny that in the feature film Horsefeathers, the Marx Brothers repeated some of the gags and it was still really funny there. Similarly the Three Stooges would repeat some of the dance scenes jokes, and they were still really funny there too. These scenes are so perfectly thought out as one small mishap leads to a bigger one and a bigger one and a bigger one, and they each get bigger and bigger laughs. These scenes by the way are funny enough when you watch the film on DVD by yourself or with a small group, however watching them with a decent size audience these scenes come off as even funnier (and that is quite amazing). Also really funny is this movie are some intertitles by Thomas J. Gray. Some of these include " The Dean of the College - he was so dignified he never married for fear his wife would call him by his first name." and "Tate University - A large football stadium, with a college attached." These got huge laughs at the theater I saw it at (Old Town Music Hall) and I can't see how they would ever fail on that regard.
I've said this before but I can't say it enough. To see silent films with live musical accompaniment (especially with a musician as talented as organ player Bill Fields, who played along with the movie here) and a great audience, can make the film seem like a whole new experience. I have seen this movie countless times on DVD and TCM, but watching it here the way it was meant to be watched made it feel like a whole different movie to me and an even better one (which is saying a lot with how much I enjoyed this film in the first place).
-Michael J. Ruhland
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