The Freshman

The Freshman (1925) is a Harold Lloyd silent comedy you can watch online — one of the biggest hits of the whole silent era. Harold Lamb heads off to college having swallowed too many movies about the dashing campus hero, convinced popularity is handed out at the gate. Day one greets him with mockery instead.

To fit in, he blows his savings throwing parties, practices a goofy little greeting jig, and tries out for the football squad. The coach takes him on — as a human tackling dummy, a fact Harold cheerfully never grasps. His feelings for Peggy (Jobyna Ralston), the one person who sees a man rather than a joke, keep him going while the whole scheme slides toward public humiliation. Then comes the big game, and the kid stuck on the bench suddenly gets sent in.

Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor directed, the regular team behind Lloyd's features of the period. It was among his top earners, and historians of comedy still quote that climactic match shot for shot. Lloyd plays no clown here but an aching try-hard you can't help rooting for, and that's the trick of the whole thing. Stream The Freshman (1925) online on iFILM.