Grandma's Boy (1922)

 Like Harold Lloyd's first feature film (A Sailor-Made Man (1921)), Grandma's Boy was not intended as a feature but rather as a short film. However as the making went on, the short would grow in length until it was actually a feature. The movie would be directed by Fred Newmeyer, who had directed A Sailor-Made Man and would continue to be one of Harold's main directors for most of his silent film career.

Though he never received writing credit on a movie, Harold Lloyd had much to do with the stories of most of his films. This was no exception in fact the idea came from Harold Lloyd himself. Originally this movie had much less laughs in it than most Harold Lloyd films had up to this time. Producer Hal Roach was not happy about this and asked Harold to add more jokes and he did. Harold would say that this was the best of his films and remained very proud of it.

Harold (played by Harold Lloyd) is a shy guy and finds it hard to stand up for himself. He loves his girlfriend (played by Mildred Davis (who would later marry Harold Lloyd)), but has never asked her to marry him, out of fear. Things get worse for Harold when a dangerous tramp (played by Dick Sutherland) is on the loose and the sheriff starts deputizing citizens to take care of this tramp. Harold becomes deputized but gets scared and hides in his room. However Harold's kindly grandmother (played by Anna Townsend) knows that all her grandson needs is self confidence. Therefore she tells Harold a story of how his grandfather (also played by Harold Lloyd) overcame his lack of self confidence and Harold is now ready to capture the tramp.

This is a fantastic movie. I agree with Harold completely when he said this would also work as a drama. However the movie is still really funny. Nearly every joke works great. Despite these jokes being added later, it never feels like that was the case. They are not only funny, but fit into and complement the storyline perfectly. They feel like they were always planned to be there, because they just come off so naturally. On the drama side this film works great too. Harold is such a naturally sympathetic character. We are on his side from the beginning. Not only do we feel sorry for him, but we also truly believe in him and think he will make it out perfectly. Adding to this is a great sense of visual filmmaking (heavily thanks to cinematographer Walter Lundin). While there were quite a few studios making only comedies at this time, none had such a great understanding of how to use the cinematic medium to its full effect as much as the Hal Roach studios. The comedies from this studio are simply some of the most beautiful looking comedies of the 1920's and 30's.      

The movie was a huge success with both audiences and critics. One especially great complement came from Charlie Chaplin who loved the movie.  Exhibitors had been hesitant to pay more for this feature than they had for Harold's shorts, the Hal Roach studio put the film in a third run movie house, where it got huge success and exhibitors had no problem paying more for a Harold Lloyd feature from then on.

A year after this film a silent Our Gang short called The Big Show would come out of the Hal Roach studios. In this short the Our Gang kids would put on their own movie show, which included very faithful and elaborate recreations of a few scenes from Grandma's Boy.