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It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The acting in this movie is really good.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

To say that Harold Lamb (Lloyd) is excited about going to college is an understatement. He knows all the cheers, has read all the books and has even perfected a meet and greet dance that he saw in the movie "The College Hero" again and again and again!!! His parents aren't so sure - "if he tries that dance at college they'll either break his heart or his neck"!! During the movie his "freshie" friends try to do both. Beautiful Jobyna Ralston plays the girl - "the kind of girl your mother must have been" (so the title says). She helps out at her mother's boarding house where Harold is forced to live after treating the entire college to ice cream!!! She also works behind the cigarette counter at the college and sees first hand how Harold is treated by his "friends". They meet on the train over a crossword puzzle and it is love at first sight for the cute pair. When he steps off the train and goes into his "routine" he is secretly thought of as a college boob but Harold thinks he is on the first rung of the ladder to popularity.Even though there is no chase sequence there are plenty of laughs as "Speedy" (his nickname) fronts up to the college dance in a suit that is only half made and as the night progresses proceeds to lose pockets, sleeves etc until he is left only in his underwear!! Another stock part of college movies -Football - has a hilarious sequence as "Speedy" tries out for the team, doesn't make it but impresses the coach and top player with his spirit and determination. They allow him to believe he is on the team while in reality he is only the water boy!! In a really thrilling game Harold makes a few silly mistakes but gives his character grit and enthusiasm which is what made him popular with audiences of the 20s. His character didn't have the wistfulness of Chaplin's "the little tramp" or the "against all odds" personality of Keaton - he was a typical American go-getter and audiences loved him and laughed along with him and was there ever a more adorable girl to win his heart than Jobyna Ralston.The last scene has Harold, now truly popular, looking out of a window as the new "freshies" arrive by train and all are doing that crazy dance - Harold has created a craze!!!Highly, Highly Recommended.

Harold Lloyd, he of the thick round glasses, is a college freshman in 1925, the days of Prohibition, beanies, flappers, the fox trot, and college sweaters with big letters on the chest. It's one of his funnier movies.He's the butt of everyone's jokes from beginning to end, except for the maid of simple taste who loves him. He's mad to be on the varsity football team and the others kid him into believing he's one of them instead of the humble water boy he actually is.Two scenes are especially amusing. The first has Lloyd attending a gala party with newly made evening clothes held together only with basting. This affords him a chance to pull off two hoary but still funny shticks. One is the costume that falls apart piece by piece in public. He pulls it off with a good deal of imagination. His tailor must follow him around at the dance, trying to sew the pieces back on, but the tailor is subject to disabling dizzy spells, forcing Lloyd to search all the men's pockets for a hip flask. I won't describe the rest of the to-do.Another gag at the party involves the hidden hand of someone else extending from the curtain behind Lloyd. I can't even count the number of times this vaudeville bit has been shown on the screen. "I Love Lucy," of course, and "Young Frankenstein." But this is as good as any other example. Lloyd is standing against the curtain, chatting to a co ed, with his right arm slipped back through the separation so the tailor can re-attach a fugitive sleeve. A man comes up and asks to borrow ten dollars. The tailor's hand emerges from the curtain and scratches Lloyd's head while he thinks this over then assents. The fake hand extracts the money from Lloyd's pocket and hands it to the other. The man thanks Lloyd profusely and the fake hand rests on his shoulder while Lloyd's REAL hand extracts the bill from the other guy's pocket and returns it to his own.The second amusing moment comes at the climactic football game with all sorts of shenanigans going on. Does Lloyd the water boy get called in to play? Does he make a lot of foolish errors? Does he finally win the game? No power on earth could get me to tell.Well, I'll mention one example of the silliness. Yes, he's finally called in, and he gallops out onto the field, delivers a furious, uncharacteristic, hapax legomenon of a pep talk, much to the awe of the other players. They assemble. Hike. Lloyd takes the ball and plunges ahead. The other pile on him. As they slowly disperse we see Lloyd flat on his back, his arms outspread, completely unconscious, no football in sight.Lloyd was no Charlie Chaplin. He was probably as good a physical actor but he didn't have Chaplin's genius for either outrageously funny situations, the set ups for them, or Chaplin's sometimes excessive penchant for sentiment. At his most humiliated, Lloyd doesn't look quite as pathetic as Chaplin did.Not to knock Lloyd. He's a fine comedian in his own right, and he put out several riotously funny movies -- this one among them.

One of Harold Lloyd's most popular vehicles, which Leonard Maltin rates **** - though I personally prefer SAFETY LAST (1923; only a *** in the famed and genial critic's book!) over it. Still, THE FRESHMAN is a marvelous comedy and an unmistakable classic (which, as was Lloyd's norm, featured wonderful cinematography that involved numerous in-camera 'tricks'). However, as mentioned in the accompanying Audio Commentary (by Maltin himself among others), the film is more character-driven - and, therefore, less gag-laden - than usual for Lloyd; interestingly, too, while normally the star/producer would shoot the central set-piece first and then devise a plot around it, he couldn't do so here because the central character's motivation during the concluding football game wasn't possible unless Lloyd and his writers had thoroughly worked out what led up to it!Needless to say, the film's college setting (a theme which endures to this day) has proved to be a very popular backdrop with star comedians along the years - beginning with Lloyd's contemporaries: it was followed by Buster Keaton's COLLEGE (1927), The Marx Bros.' HORSE FEATHERS (1932) and Laurel & Hardy's A CHUMP AT OXFORD (1940). The gags, too, are of a very high standard: the opening scene where Lloyd's wacky college yells are mistaken by his father, an amateur radio enthusiast, for static (the look of disappointment on his face when he realizes the source of his 'reception' is priceless); Lloyd modeling his persona after the lead of a college-set film he watched, encapsulated in an elaborate dance step he makes prior to introducing himself to anyone, and which our hero fervently copies in the hope of gaining acceptance among his peers; Lloyd, rejected for the all-important football team, is eventually asked to serve as a 'dummy' on which his colleagues can perform their training!; the lengthy party sequence (in which the star is accompanied -because of his fragile costume - by an elderly tailor, suffering from periodical dizzy spells) is hysterically funny; the justly-celebrated football game, then, provides the perfect climax to the film (and was actually reprised over 20 years later by none other than Preston Sturges for the opening sequence of what turned out to be Lloyd's swan-song, THE SIN OF HAROLD DIDDLEBOCK [1947]).As was the case with GIRL SHY (1924), the plot occasionally resorts to sentiment (one such scene, where Harold breaks down on leading lady Jobyna Ralston's lap, was actually removed by the star himself for subsequent re-issues because it was deemed excessive but, happily, it has been re-instated for this version): here, too, the emotional scenes are beautifully handled and do not sit uncomfortably alongside the slapstick or deter from the fun in any way.

Perhaps one of the best comedies by Mr. Lloyd. The final football game is just a perfect and unique moment in the silent movies history. I was a child when saw The Freshman for first time. It was my first Lloydian "experience". It was enough to fall in love his comedian style. TRIVIA: In Spain this is one of the most popular Lloyd movie. The Spanish title was "El estudiante novato" (The new student). With this film Mister Lloyd showed he could keep the high level showed on his previous long movies. Without doubt he was on the top. His character in this film, Harold Diddlebock, was used again in 1947 in the last Lloyd's film "The sin of Harold Diddlebock", by Preston Sturgues. In this film, the young student is now a medium age clerk tired of his so boring life...An interesting imagination exercise about the future of The Freshman's main character