The story of Harold Lloyd begins in the Nebraskan mid-west, a land of rolling prairies and the occasional blustery ragweed. Our character is an energetic but altogether average young man. He dreams of a life on the stage, performs in amateur drama competitions, and in 1913 moves with his father to California, shortly landing a job as an extra in the movies. Here he befriends another energetic fellow by the name of Hal Roach, who encourages Harold to try his luck at comedy roles rather than “the heavies” he prefers. After joining Roach’s fledgling company in 1915 and practicing his new craft in over 60 one-reel shorts as a clown named “Lonesome Luke” (a slavish imitation of Charlie Chaplin), Lloyd rips off his moustache in 1917 and dons a pair of glasses. The rest, as they say, is history.
The history that is told often recites Lloyd’s whirlwind production schedule as the “Glasses Character” (tallying at least 80 shorts, 12 silent features, and another 5 features made with sound in the 1930s) and banters his name about as the most lucrative US comedian of the Jazz Age. A few commentators recall the unstable prop that blew up in the comedian’s right hand during a stills shoot for Haunted Spooks in 1919, leaving him with three fingers and a prosthetic device. This biographical bit provides a neat segue to tales of Lloyd’s plucky nerve, and enhances astonishment at his climb up the side of a 12-story building in the memorable sequence in Safety Last! (1923). For that matter, the physicality demanded in the strenuous, electrifying finales that dominate every one of Lloyd’s 1920s features still amazes. The frenzied rescue sequence in Girl Shy, in which Harold leaps from one vehicle to the next to prevent The Girl from marrying a man who wants her only for her fortune (and who also happens to be a bigamist), is one of his best.
It would be a mistake to isolate Lloyd’s antics without acknowledging the vitality of Walter Lundin’s camera. The vertical traveling shot that ascends with Harold as he climbs a tree to keep The Girl in sight in The Kid Brother, and then falls with him in a painful descent to the ground, typifies Lundin’s innovations, while carefully placed angles reveal streets below in every shot of the nerve-wracking climbs in High and Dizzy and Safety Last! That same camera also lends itself to light-hearted sight gags, the sort that play with ambiguity and enable us to see two things at once. It’s hard to resist a quiet chuckle when Harold floats in a rowboat in Girl Shy dreaming of The Girl, who happens to be walking over the bridge at just that moment. He mistakes her physical reflection in the water for a reflection of the more figurative kind – and so he sighs, happily ensconced in his daydream.
It has been easy for commentators to sum up the “Glasses Character” as a “virtuous American,” an industrious, plucky, optimistic sort of chap. And in equally obvious ways, that virtuous young fellow contends with an urbane and often insidious social order, in the form of executives, quacks, renegade militia, bullying siblings, cheeky co-eds, or, in Girl Shy, the publishers (and stenographers) who mock him and his manuscript.
But the most memorable antagonists in these films take non-human form, avatars of an irreverent natural world that conspire against the Glasses Character, threatening to undo his grip on propriety if not his “virtue” per se. The courtship scene in Grandma’s Boy (1922) spirals into awkward embarrassment as a litter of greedy kittens lick the goose-grease from Harold’s hand-polished shoes. Although it often takes only one: a single kitten writhing in his sweater (The Freshman); a fly tickling his neck (The Kid Brother); a chihuahua dragging away his hat (High and Dizzy); a thieving crab in his pocket with a penchant for snagging underclothes out of women’s bags (Speedy). An especially delightful scene in Girl Shy elaborates nature’s messy sensuality, much to Harold’s chagrin. Having stumbled into The Girl he adores, The Boy labors towards conversation. His propensity to stutter gets in his way, as does a litter of piglets suckling at their mother’s teats. Moving The Girl away from any semblance of suckling, he leans against a sapling that oozes on his hand. He then inadvertently wipes the sap on his pants and nervously seeks a safer spot for chatting. Sitting down seems wise, so he collapses onto a rock which is not a rock at all but – as we can see – a rather large turtle. Finally at ease, The Boy attends to The Girl, gazing into her eyes as the tortoise carries him slowly towards the murky depths.
When Girl Shy was released in the United States in the spring of 1924 – a little over 100 years ago – its immediate success prompted the Criterion theatre in Los Angeles to announce an unprecedented screening policy: the film ran continuously from 10:00 a.m. until midnight every day to satisfy the many patrons. Lloyd’s first independent production after parting ways with Roach, Girl Shy also mirrors the comedian’s career and the medium that brought him such extraordinary success. Much like his character, a working-class boy from “Little Bend” who heads to Los Angeles to sell his “masterpiece,” Lloyd left his Nebraska hometown and found a market for his talents in California. And if the publishers in Girl Shy initially reject The Boy’s manuscript, earnestly titled “The Secret of Making Love,” they come to believe it might “make the whole world laugh.” They retitle it “The Boob’s Diary” and mail him a check for the astonishing amount of $3,000. In like manner, Lloyd was persuaded to drop his dramatic aspirations and take a chance on comedy, perhaps stunned to learn the pay could be rather handsome indeed. This he achieved without uttering a word, just as The Boy in Girl Shy cannot speak, only stutter. But that’s OK. A bit of help from “The Girl” (skillfully played by Lloyd’s long-term screen counterpart, Jobyna Ralston) and a visual symphony accomplish the rest.

Jennifer M. Bean

 

The music  If there’s one rule as a silent Ok film musician, it’s “always be prepared for everything”. So many different versions of the same film can be in circulation, and with analog projection the speed is an aspect that can also change from screening to screening. But differences in versions, speeds, and even tinting can provide new perspectives to the same film. When I started sketching the first ideas for my score for Harold Lloyd’s masterpiece Girl Shy, I was working with a slower projection speed than was finally chosen. To my astonishment, the faster version not only changed the pace of the film more than I expected, but for some parts it changed my whole interpretation of them. It made me decide to rewrite a lot of music at the last minute. I must say, I am excited with the result, and think that both the film and the music benefit from the chosen speed. I am extremely grateful for having the chance to work with the fantastic musicians of the Zerorchestra. With them in mind, I was forced to explore sides of jazz and swing that I had not explored previously. For certain scenes it opened whole new worlds of possibilities for me to express emotions and vibes in a way I had never done before.

Daan van den Hurk