Grandma's Boy (1922)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Fred C. Newmeyer

Writers:

Hal Roach (story) &
Sam Taylor (story) ...

Release Date:

3 September 1922 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Family

Tagline:

Where Laughter Reigns and Joy Pours!

Plot:

Always the mama's boy, or in this case a grandma's boy, Sonny joins a posse after a tramp accused of robbery and murder...

Plot Keywords:

Bully | Tramp | Fugitive | Murder | Cowardice

Cast

Harold Lloyd	...	Grandma's Boy
Mildred Davis	...	His Girl
Anna Townsend	...	His Grandma
Charles Stevenson	...	His Rival / Union General
Dick Sutherland	...	The Rolling Stone
Noah Young	...	Sheriff of Dabney County

Runtime:

USA:60 min (21.5 fps) | USA:56 min (2002 release)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Certification:

UK:U | USA:Passed (National Board of Review) | USA:TV-G (TV rating) | Australia:G | Portugal:17 (director's cut)

Filming Locations:

General Service Studios - 1040 N. Las Palmas, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Hal Roach Studios

Trivia:

The flashback scenes set in the Civil War are actually the original short around which this movie was built.

Goofs:

Continuity: Grandma's boy puts six mothballs in the chocolate box. His girl gives him one from the box, but when his rival later picks up two, there are seven mothballs in the box instead of five.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Big Show (1923)

Soundtrack:

You Are the Ideal of My Dreams

A Classic!

Grandma's Boy is one of Harold Lloyd's most sensational films. Originally Harold, producer Hal Roach and director Fred Newmeyer were going to make Grandma's Boy a two-reeler but it evolved so much that in the end, five reels were filmed and edited. Before Grandma's Boy, every single one of Lloyd's films just involved using sight gags and extremely fast paced comedy but Grandma's Boy was a very significant film for Lloyd because it was his very first character comedy which meant that the film not only had comedy gags and a love interest, but it examined the leading character a lot more into depth. Lloyd would later again make a film in the same style as Grandma's Boy and that film is The Kid Brother which is today regarded as a masterpiece. Also in Grandma's Boy, Lloyd tried to put a real dramatic intent in the picture, which was never attempted by a comedian before. Charles Chaplin had gone to some extent to make The Kid (1921) a drama but he needed to also focus on the character of the child and so more comedy had to be put in it and The Kid being the first great feature-length comedy, it would inspire Lloyd to make Grandma's Boy a feature. Even Charles Chaplin was a fan of Grandma's Boy as follows "It is one of the best constructed screenplays I have ever seen on the screen…The boy has a fine understanding of light and shape and that picture has given me a real artistic thrill and stimulated me to go ahead." At the preview of the film, the audience wasn't laughing because there just wasn't enough comedy and Lloyd and Roach argued it out and finally they agreed that they should get the gagmen to come to the studio and we'll fix up the comedy situations.

Grandma's Boy refers to Sonny (Harold Lloyd) who is a coward. As he walks back to his grandma's place, a group of girls are in the yard and there Sonny enters with his short pants and short jacket looking as if he's outgrown his entire outfit. These clothes are highly reminiscent of Lloyd's earlier Lonesome Luke comedies. Sonny then becomes the laughing stock of the girls when he trips over and runs away. Then a mysterious tramp (Dick Sutherland) comes and sits down in their yard. Sonny's Grandma tells him to tell the tramp to leave but Sonny does not have the courage for those kinds of things. After Sonny asks and gets thrown on the ground by the tramp, Granny makes the tramp run like hell after she chases him with a broom. Then at evening time Sonny must go to his girlfriend's gathering at her home. Sonny then asks Granny for some clothes and so Granny gives him Granddad's suit, 1860s style. Lloyd's leading lady in the film is of course Mildred Davis whom he would marry the following year. Going back to the plot of the film, Sonny also has a rival (Charles Stevenson) who also likes Mildred but truthfully Mildred is deeply in love with Sonny. The rival is also a bully who always beats up Sonny, no matter what the time, place or occasion is. Then after a lot of fun at the gathering, the sheriff storms into the house with the townspeople to explain what has just happened. The sheriff is played by Noah Young. So as the sheriff explains, the scene fades into the event that he's talking about and this is where it gets truly suspenseful and it still works so well after all these years. The tramp is walking through the town, breaks a window and shoots a man and runs away, and so the sheriff appoints a couple of deputies but when he is about to deputize Sonny, he has unfortunately run out of badges. Later Sonny is walking through the town's properties in the dark and with his shotgun until finally he runs home out of fear. Granny hears him coming home and she doesn't know how to help poor Sonny and so she goes back to bed. The following morning Granny enters Harold's room and tells him a story that Granddaddy was also a coward. She explains "…. He thought he was the biggest coward in the world, but…On the morning of April 7, 1862…And so the civil-war flashback of the film unfolds with Sonny's Grandfather running through the words as cannon fire shoots through the trees. This is the film's most memorable sequence as Sonny's Grandfather knocks out all the Army officials by dressing up as a kitchen servant. And so finally his own side captures Granddad, he then undresses revealing his original uniform and giving the officer the secret plans and so he becomes a hero. Then Granny gives Sonny a magic talisman, which apparently helped Granddad in the civil war. And in the last part of the film Sonny captures the tramp, beats up his bully and becomes the town's hero. Granny celebrates at what a great person Sonny has become and a group of girls come along and congratulate him and Mildred comes out and plays hard to get. Meanwhile Sonny found out the truth about the talisman. The talisman was in fact a fake and it was just some gimmick that fits onto the top of an umbrella and so Sonny finds out that the courage was in fact within him all along. Grandma's Boy is a near-masterpiece and remains one of the most influential films from the silent era.