Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Caryl It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

thinbeach It's clear to see why this film is so well loved - Lloyd the geeky underdog goes to college, wins the football match and wins the girl, providing plenty of laughs along the way. A very fresh faced looking Lloyd here has plenty of naive charm, and produces probably the best performance of his career - his round glasses character being more suited to the college setting than any other.The arrival at college to the first football practice is some of his best material, although things go slightly south after that. His suit falling apart at the ball leans a little too much on the ridiculous, while the football finale is as predictable as they come (though to be fair, he was probably one of the first to do it).Still, the 76 minute run time breezes along and its certainly entertaining.

CJBx7 THE FRESHMAN (1925) deals with Harold Lamb's (Harold Lloyd) endeavors to become a popular man on campus, by joining the football team, only to find that the other kids think he's the "college boob". Still, with the support of his girl Peggy (Jobyna Ralston), he manages to show them all what he's really made of. Directed by Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor.This film was one of Harold Lloyd's biggest successes, and is now part of the National Film Registry. THE FRESHMAN represents the culmination of Harold Lloyd's development of his lovable nerd persona – clumsy and awkward, but plucky, full of spirit, and never quits. This had a tremendous appeal to 20s audiences and is still quite endearing today. THE FRESHMAN kickstarted a spate of college-based movies, and many movies to this day use the same kinds of characters – the nerd, the insensitive jock, the girl who sticks by the leading man's side even when no one else believes in him, etc. The movie has some brilliantly constructed gags - just when you think they can't go on any more, Lloyd comes up with something else to amaze you. My favorite is the party in the hotel, which features a dizzy tailor trying in vain to mend Lloyd's tuxedo. Also funny is the scene where Lloyd's character has to make an impromptu speech to his class while wrestling with a cat.Harold plays his character with his typical peppy charm, and Jobyna Ralston makes a nice love interest. Everyone here is effective in his or her roles and the film doesn't wear out its welcome. It's easy to see why this movie was so popular in its time, and it still has lots of comic appeal today. SCORE: 8/10

Martin Teller I know a lot of people consider this to be one of Harold Lloyd's best (and it's certainly one of his most famous) but I felt it came up a little short. Lloyd plays a decent chap trying his best to win popularity at his new school (like a lot of college comedies, going to class seems to be optional). There's some funny gags and inventive moments, and the football finale is rightfully iconic, but a lot of bits are drawn out far long or just aren't that funny. Watching Lloyd embarrass himself on stage or act as the team's tackle dummy or cope with an unraveling tuxedo is amusing at first but becomes tedious after a few minutes. The romance is also quite underdeveloped. I don't want to rag on it too much... as far as slapstick comedies go, it's far less annoying than most. I just expected more laughs. I prefer SAFETY LAST.

SnorrSm1989 I am aware that SAFETY LAST! is widely considered Harold Lloyd's signature work, which of course is not without reason. However, other than its magnificent finale at the building, much of SAFETY LAST! arguably seems rather standard; funny and well-done by all means, but much more concerned with gags than character. THE FRESHMAN, on the other hand, equips Lloyd's character with more depth; and manages to be no less funny than SAFETY LAST! for that reason. In fact, to me, THE FRESHMAN is probably the most consistently funny film Harold Lloyd ever did. Released in 1925, Lloyd was well-established as a comedian of feature-length films by this point, and enjoyed something so rare in Hollywood as full creative freedom.Harold is The Freshman: he has just arrived at college with the dream of becoming the most popular boy in school. Having recently watched a light college-movie (those were becoming popular even before Lloyd made THE FRESHMAN), the ever-optimistic Harold is convinced that the surest way to gain popularity is to behave exactly as the performers in the college-movie he'd just seen; he is unaware that movies (and fiction in general) usually provide an exaggerated depiction of the real world. Most of the other students ridicule Harold's rather banal "tip-toe"-greeting amongst themselves, though they at first pretend to be impressed with him, just to make him into an even bigger joke. The exception is Jobyna Ralston's sympathetic character Peggy, who finds Harold cute, and Harold is quite attracted to her as well.The funniest part of the film I consider to be the one at the party, which has Harold's well-meaning, aging tailor failing to repair the young man's suit just before a school dance is to begin. Though the tailor finally succeeds, he does not fully trust his own skills, and insists on walking along with Harold in case something should happen to tear up while the boy is dancing. Needless to say, this is just what happens. Everything tears up; the laughs and humor which follow are much enhanced due to Harold's facial expressions, during his near-fanatic attempts to maintain his dignity while the tailor, hiding behind curtains and the like, tries to repair the suit in a hurry. Some moments had me in stitches. The eventual finale to this hilarious sequence is, however, a bit unexpected. Having lost his temper when a villainous boy tries to steal his sweetheart, Harold is finally made aware of how most of the students around view him. At first, our hero seems to shrug it off; "I knew it all the time." It does not last long, however, before he bursts out in tears, burying his face in the lap of Jobyna. The laughter is forgotten by now and we are instead faced with almost overwhelming sentimentality.When Lloyd decided to introduce THE FRESHMAN to new audiences in the 1950s, he insisted on leaving out the part with him crying in Jobyna's lap, fearing it would appear too sentimental to modern audiences. Although I never understood the apparent aversion to "sentimentality" among audiences of recent decades (in fact, sometimes I feel we could need some more sentimentality these days), I can to an extent see Lloyd's viewpoint here; the moments with Lloyd crying make us sympathize with him, but seem to have been devised with exactly that in mind. Unlike, in my opinion, the pathos Chaplin offers in THE KID and CITY LIGHTS, films which benefited from scenes with strong pathos, the story and atmosphere of THE FRESHMAN could have done just as well with a more suggestive, downplayed approach. At least on first sight, that is. On the other hand, in contrast to Chaplin's Tramp, Harold much more resembles a real human being; thus he also seems to inhabit a (somewhat) less exaggerated comic universe than the Tramp, and one could argue it is only reasonable that he should also perform emotional outbursts akin to something of a real person, in such a stressful situation.In any case, the upcoming football sequence made me laugh almost as heartily as the one at the party and also captivated me completely, which should say something since I barely know the basic rules in football; and it also contains quite a lot of tension, since the game gives Harold his final opportunity to prove his worth among the narrow-minded other students at his college... THE FRESHMAN remains both funny and sweet; perhaps not as stunning as Lloyd's later THE KID BROTHER, but arguably his funniest, and with decent opportunity for Lloyd to establish a character we care about as audiences, in between and during all the gags. (This review was revised and updated in 2015.)