O Maricas

I initially went to the Film Forum's presentation to experience what going to the movies might have been like 80 years ago. To have an experience like my grandmother had (she used to rave about Harold Loyd). I thought the film was going to be OK. I was astonished at the wit of the film, its emotional content and the joy it brought to the audience. The gags were plentiful and quite clever, the action kept everything moving and the audience enjoyed themselves immensely (obviously a self selected group). The entire experience was enhanced by a live piano player and I think by the communal experience of seeing this film at the movies.

I highly recommend the film.

Harold Lloyd's latest may well be called his best. There is so much action jammed into this picture that when it once gets under way one forgets the opening is rather slow. The last two reels move along so fast, with so many thrills, that the average audience is going to stand up and howl. It's a wow of a comedy picture!

The story is by Sam Taylor, Tommy Gray, Tim Whelen and Ted Wilde. Taylor, together with Fred Newmeyer, directed.

Lloyd is a small-town tailor's apprentice, frightfully girl shy and prone to stuttering. In secret, however, he fancies himself as an author and feels the urge to write a book on girls and women, with himself figuring as the heroic character in a series of romances that are 16 in number.

It is this script that brings him in contact with the rich girl. He is on his way to the city with the script when he meets her on the train. There is a lot of good laugh stuff in the train scene, the first wow coming when he rescues the toy dog belonging to the heiress. The hiding of the dog to get past the conductor and the subsequent complications are also good for laughs.

The biggest of the picture, however, is the chase stuff that runs through both of the final reels. It starts off with Lloyd becoming aware his book has been accepted and he is the receipt of $3,000 advance royalties, this followed by the discovery of the fact that "the girl" is going to be married to his rival, who already has a wife, starts him off hotfoot for the scene of the wedding. What he goes through to get there is beyond the mere power of a typewriter to describe. It is a chase that caps anything else that has ever been done on the screen.

Playing the lead opposite Lloyd is Jobyna Ralston, who proves herself considerable of an actress in addition to being decidedly pretty. The heavy is Carlton Griffith. No one in the cast other than four characters are mentioned, and, as a matter of fact, no one except Lloyd and the girl remain in one's memory.

The chances are that with "Girl Shy," Lloyd is going to run up bigger sales gross than he has had with any of his previous productions.

This is an enjoyable feature with some good comedy and a good role for Harold Lloyd, giving him plenty of opportunities to show his athleticism and his slapstick skills while developing his character at the same time. The story follows the reliable pattern of pleasant light comedy as the plot takes shape, followed by an extended race-against-time sequence for the finale.

Lloyd's character is easy to sympathize with, despite his flaws and mistakes, and his stuttering and other habits help to make the character work. It's easy to identify with both his shyness and his overly-optimistic dreams, even when the character is completely self-deluded. Jobyna Ralston is effective as the gentle young rich woman, and their relationship's ups and downs are believably portrayed.

The pace is deliberate for the most part, until everything is set up for the climactic sequence. Lloyd gets to do some impressive stunts, and there are a lot of interesting details. One notable feature is that Harold makes use of almost every conceivable form of conveyance available at the time, which adds to the effect.

As is usual for a Lloyd feature, there are a lot of visual details here and there that often set off the main action nicely. The main character is just enough different from Lloyd's best-known roles to make him interesting yet largely familiar. The story is told effectively, with a couple of recurring visual references that work well in wordlessly conveying the characters' thoughts. The romance, comedy, and action make for an entertaining mix.

Although painfully GIRL SHY, a tailor's assistant uses every ounce of strength to keep the young woman he adores from an unwise marriage.

Harold Lloyd produces another winning entry in his series of silent screen comedy classics. This time there is a healthy dose of old-fashioned romanticism, as Harold and beautiful Jobyna Ralston yearn & commune alongside a bucolic stream.

Such tenderness never cloys, however, as Lloyd makes sure to leaven it with healthy helpings of hilarity. His attempts to hide a small dog on a passenger train are uproarious, as are his demonstrations on how to make love to vamps & flappers. And when the viewer thinks Harold can't possibly top himself, he ends the film with one of his marvelous chase scenes, in which he uses every sort of conveyance (train, jalopy, horse, fire truck, trolley, motorcycle & sand wagon) to stop Jobyna's marriage to a cad.

Throughout, Harold displays the remarkable athleticism for which he was celebrated, made even more astonishing when one remembers that he had lost half of his right hand a few years before in a freak studio accident, a disfigurement he disguised with a prosthetic glove.

Movie mavens will recognize some OUR GANG kids in uncredited roles--Fat Joe Cobb & Jackie Condon in the tailor's shop and Mickey Daniels as a newsboy on the street.

Jim Parker has composed an excellent film score which perfectly complements Harold's antics on the screen.

The great Harold Lloyd has a total triumph in 1924's Girl Shy. This films is jam-packed with wit, slapstick, and old-fashioned sweetness. Lloyd found his perfect leading lady in Jobyna Ralston, who had just the right amount of prettiness and comic timing. Lloyd, of course, was the master of comic timing in everything from set pieces to still-spectacular chases across Los Angeles downtown streets. I especially liked the daydream scenes where the shy Harold conquers 2 great 1920s stereotypes: the Vamp, and the Flapper. I'd love to know who plays theses women in this film. I think she also appears as the girl with the hole in her stocking. This actress is a hoot as the parody of the vamp and flapper..... Altho I admire Chaplin, Keaton, and Harry Langdon as master comics, Harold Lloyd may have been the most complete of these star performers. His acting range was the broadest and his characters were never quite as vaudevillian--Harold Lloyd's everyman persona still rings true 80 years later. Bravo, Harold Lloyd!