Harold Lloyd

Girl Shy

1924 / 80 minutes

Whenever Harold Meadows (Harold Lloyd) encounters pretty girls, he suffers from shyness-induced stuttering which stops only after he hears a whistle. Ironic since he attracts women. He’s not bad-looking and his prospects are stable if dull: he works as an apprentice in his uncle’s tailor shop. Harold’s small-town isolation drives him to a rich fantasy life. As an evening hobby, he writes his own version of The Memoirs of Casanova, which he hopes to sell to a publisher.

On the train from Little Bend to the metropolis, he meets the comely, demure, sweet, and - let’s not forget - wealthy Mary Buckingham (Jobyna Ralston). She’s been forced to travel by rail because of car trouble. Harold helps Mary to smuggle her Pomeranian aboard the train and hide the ornery yipper from the bullying conductor. At first Harold stutters but after hearing the train’s steam whistle he’s able to share his hopes and dreams with her. They part but when by chance they see each other again, they are both overjoyed. Harold's book, however, is rejected by the publisher as an absurd fantasy and he sees any future with Mary go up in smoke. Moreover, a rich guy pressures her and her mother for her hand.

The film contains two parts. First, more than enough time is spent Harold’s embarrassment owing to his stutter. In fact, jokes that hinge on verbal stumbling and stammering seem a stretch in a silent movie. Still, some scenes in this first half will tickle. During his writing scenes, he acts out seducing (or not) a vamp and a flapper. Very funny both on its own terms and our post-modern amusement at that era’s stereotypes of the vamp and flapper. Genuinely poignant are the scenes when the two lovers break it off and his humiliation when all the city slickers laugh at his silly book. I think we connect with Lloyd because he was just a guy, a real guy subject to irrational passions, not a stoic sage like Buster Keaton.

The second part of the film consists of Lloyd’s trademark rough comedy, a.k.a. thrill sequence. Harold must prevent the wedding of Mary to the rich guy. On the way to the ceremony, Harold hijacks a streetcar, carjacks various passenger sedans and commandeers a delivery wagon. Lloyd did his own incredible stunts. Also interesting is that this was filmed in real locations.