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78 The Freshman
ent bell in the party sequence, and the steam whistle which ends Lloyd's run in the football game, were introduced to exploit the sound effects which by this time almost all theaters had introduced to supplement musical accompaniment.
Structurally the film could be divided into four two-reelers: the freshman introduces himself to the student body, the freshman at football practice, the freshman gives a party, and the big game. For this reason, the film suffers from some of the defects inherent in an extended development of one situation. Lloyd has some difficulty reconciling the development of a sympathetic character and a unified story line because his best pace is still the hectic scramble of a Sennett two-reeler. In the scene on the train where a solicitous matron mistakes an exchange of crossword puzzle possibilities for a budding romance, and Lloyd bolts in embarrassment, Lloyd could not resist putting a porter with a full tray in the path of the retreat, undercuting the fine anguish of the scene with adventitious slapstick.
Lloyd's comic character is a limited one. He lends no poignant grace to his pathos as does Chaplin, nor does he possess the comic stoicism and inventiveness of Keaton. The joke is always the same one, and Lloyd is its butt. Only at the end of the film in Lloyd's ninety-nine yard run does mischance finally work for him. Lloyd's redeeming quality is supposed to be spunk. Consider some of his pictures' titles: Never Weaken, Safety Last, Why Worry., Welcome Danger. He presented a character with no real sympathetic qualities but innocence and determination. He is memorable for the nightmarish dilemmas in which he placed himself, but it is hard for us today to understand what special quality made him the idol of a generation and led, heaven help us, to an era when the Lloyd gulp was considered as necessary to successful fraternity living as a hip flask, and millions of lensless, celluloid, Harold Lloyd glasses were sold on the campuses of the land.
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THE STRONG MAN (U.S., 1926) Directed by Frank Capra
In The Strong Man, Langdon tries to recapture the Sennett and Chaplin muse. His attempt, however, is like a Roman imitation of a Greek drama — more gore, but less good. Langdon uses most of the trappings of this slapstick tradition. For most of the film he has on a tight, threadbare jacket and baggy pants, the standard costume of the clown. His characterization also follows these lines. He portrays the small, strangely childlike man whose innocence and ingeunity both isolate and protect him from a hostile world. These qualities are at least striven for in the opening section. After a short film clip of men in battle, Langdon is found in No-Man's Land, alternating between target shooting at a nearby tin can with a machine gun and kissing the picture of his girl, completely oblivious to the war going on about him. When an enemy finally appears and his machine gun becomes jammed. Langdon, at least temporarily, routs him by firing a slingshot loaded with onions. For the remainder of the