Thanks for the memories!

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The bespectacled comedian Harold Lloyd was one of America's three premiere silent movie clowns. Charles Chaplin and Buster Keaton were the other two, and they are remembered more than Lloyd. Nevertheless, throughout sheer perseverance, Lloyd carved out a reputation for himself and his comedies that ranks him alongside these two cinematic titans. Mind you, Lloyd made more movies than both Chaplin and Keaton. Primarily, Lloyd had his own trademark physical appearance that compared with Chaplin's 'Little Tramp' and Keaton's stone-faced every man. Lloyd adopted circular spectacles and a straw hat, and he played clean-cut, average guys out to better themselves. In "Girl Shy," Lloyd plays Harold Meadows, an assistant seamstress who is deadly afraid of women. Any time that he finds himself in the company of dames, he lapses into a stutter that only the sound of a whistle can release him. This is just one of the many sight and sound gags that proliferate in this hilarious silent epic. When he isn't sewing, Harold is typing a book about how to make love to women. Each chapter has a different kind of women, i.e., a vamp or a flapper, and his way of winning them over to him. Eventually, Harold finishes the book and leaving the small town of Little Bend, California, and travels by train to Los Angeles. Along the way, he meets a beautiful lady, Mary Buckingham, who is the daughter of a wealthy family, on the train. They become friends during the trip because Mary has a small dog that the train refuses to transport. Before Mary boarded the train, a bystander told her about the railroad's policy of prohibiting the transport of pets. As the train is pulling away from the depot, Mary's small dog jumps off the train. As the train leaves, Harold borrows a passenger's walking cane, snags the little beast by its collar, and hoists him aboard. He smuggles the doggie into the passenger car and gives it to Mary. Unable to find a seat, he winds up sitting next to the heroine because the train went through a curve and tumbled him into the seat next to her. When the conductor approaches them to punch their tickets, Harold quickly sneaks the doggie into his traveling valise. What Harold doesn't know is that an old biddy sitting behind him has pushed his valise aside and put her valise where his was. Consequently, our hero sticks the dog in the old lady's valise. When the pooch starts to bark and arouse the conductor's suspicions, Harold imitates the canine and convinces the conductor that he is barking. Later, when they arrive in Los Angeles, Harold leaves a copy of his manuscript with a publisher and returns to Little Bend. Meantime, a low-life suitor for Mary's affections, Ronald DeVore (Carlton Griffin of "It Happened One Night") proposes to her, and they set a marriage date. Not long afterward, we learn that DeVore is already married and has told his wife that his family refuses to meet her. As a result, she has to wait for him to notify her that his folks are willing to accept her into their clan. Mary wants to see Harold again, and she drives around Little Bend hoping to spot him. DeVore and her break down during one of these trips, and DeVore leaves her with their automobile stuck in the road to find a tow-truck. Nearby the scene of their accident, Mary decides to get out and wander around. She sees water lilies in a creek, steps onto a floating pier, and it bumps into a boat. Moments before as he was sitting in the same boat underneath a bridge that Mary crossed, Harold saw her reflection in the water and imagined that he was dreaming about her. Now, the little platform bumps into Harold's boat, and Mary falls into the boat. Harold's father Jerry Meadows (Richard Daniels of "The White Sheep") spots Harold speaking with Mary as he walks along the road. Naturally, he is surprised to see his son getting chummy with a girl. DeVore shows up moments later, and he isn't amused. He punches out Jerry, and Harold punches him out. Mary and DeVore leave, and Mary says she wants to see him when he comes to town. The next time that Harold comes to Los Angeles, our stuttering protagonist learns that the publisher has no use for his book and plans to send him an official rejection slip. An assistant to the publisher informs him that everybody in the office howled at the antics in Harold's book, and the publisher changes his mind and sends Harold an advance amounting to three thousand dollars. By this time, Harold believes himself to be a loser and discourages Mary about any relationship that they might have had, until he finds out that he is going to be published. Furthermore, he learns to his chagrin that Mary plans to marry DeVore. Heart-broken with grief and jealousy, Harold finds out that DeVore is currently married when his wife comes into his father's sewing shop. Immediately, Harold rushes off to Los Angeles and plans to save Mary from this wolf who is clearly out to get her family's fortune.The finale of "Girl Shy" shows out hero commandeering virtually every mode of transportation to get to the marriage ceremony before it is too late to save Mary. The outlandish antics involved in switching from cars, to horses, to different cars, and then a trolley car highlight this fast and furious race against time that Harold makes. Of course, he arrives on time to rescue Mary. Altogether, "Girl Shy" boasts lots of sight gags that will split your sides and keep you laughing throughout its snappy 87 minute running time.

The premise for this Harold Lloyd vehicle is the oft-used trope of the nice guy who is terribly shy around women, in this case, so much so that he begins stuttering and even trembling. What makes it amusing initially is that he's also an aspiring writer who, of all things, has written a how-to book for other young men called "The Secret of Making Love". The two fantasy sequences he dreams up while writing, for chapters dealing with a woman who is a vampire (vamp) and a flapper, are fantastic, and I wish there could have been more of them. Lloyd is of course cool, confident, and macho in his daydreams, at one point giving the flapper (Judy King) a spanking. In real life he can't even muster the courage to sit down next to a rich young girl who has tried to sneak her dog on a train (Jobyna Ralston). The love story that develops between Lloyd and Ralston is predictable, but sweet. The two of them carry around mementos of their meeting (a box of dog treats for him, and a box of Cracker Jacks for her), pining away for each other. Lloyd endures humiliation in many ways, the most memorable being when an entire office crowd around to laugh over his book, and then mock him mercilessly. These empathy building devices for the 'nice guy' are cliché today, but I found them endearing and interesting, especially since the film is from 1924. There are a few nice gags along the way, but what really makes the film is the madcap journey he takes aboard all manner of vehicles - a car, train, pair of horses, streetcar, motorcycle, etc. towards the end. It's an extended sequence that is brilliant and memorable.

I haven't been in the silent films for long but after I fell in love with Charlie Chaplin I knew I had to expand my Horizon pass just the Tramp. That is when I saw Harold Lloyd in girl shy. What's great about his character is that he represents a lot of men and his character traits are still very much seen even in 2017. Throughout the scenes I felt very similar to him and almost felt bad at the same time because I knew how he felt. When watching this film I couldn't help but make comparisons to my first silent film the circus. But even with this in my mind I still thought it was a good piece of silent film history but not completely the best in my opinion.

A person who usually watches bits and pieces of older movies this one caught my attention I think Harold was a handsome shy man working in a store. He was seriously shy of women. I think it was hard for him to figure out how to be calm around a group of girls. The plot of the story was very focused everything within the story line was well done. I feel like this movie is more towards a romantic comedy there were a few comedic scenes not many and the music used fit the scenes very well.