The Freshman

Harold Lloyd plays a small-town boy so primed for college life that he has rehearsed his entrance greeting in front of a mirror for months. He arrives on campus full of pep and immediately becomes the patsy of the football team and the joke of the student body, all while believing he is the most popular man in school. The film builds to a football finale where he finally gets his chance on the field. Lloyd's everyman optimism was never better matched to a story, and The Freshman was one of the biggest hits of the silent era. The glasses character, Lloyd's signature screen persona, is in full form here. Published in 1925, it is in the public domain in the United States.