Synopsis
Harold Meadows (Lloyd) is a clerk in a small-town store. He is writing a book about how to handle women, a subject about which he only knows what he has seen in the movies. He submits his book to a publisher. On a train to the city, he meets and falls in love with Mary Buckingham (Ralston), a rich girl, but his hopes to win her are crushed when his book is rejected. However, the publisher reconsiders and accepts his book. Now financially secure and able to marry the girl, he learns that she is about to marry an unworthy suitor. The film climaxes in a series of daredevil stunts as Harold races across the city to save Mary from this unfortunate marriage.
Discussion
Girl Shy typifies Harold Lloyd's persona of the innocent young man, shy but eager, well meaning, and upright.
TCM Film Festival, 2012
Girl Shy was presented with live musical accompaniment at the 2012
TCM Classic Film Festival. Guest speakers were film historian and critic Leonard
Maltin and Harold Lloyd's granddaughter Susan Lloyd. Maltin noted that the
climatic scene is a tour of Los Angeles circa 1924. Susan Lloyd talked about her
grandfather, who raised her. Harold Lloyd loved the sound of laughter and hearing
people laugh, and he loved entertaining children. In the early 1920s he became his
own producer and owned his own studio. He developed a screen persona of the
average guy,
a real person and an underdog for whom the audience is
rooting. Lloyd was also a perfectionist. He previewed his films with an audience
and would reshoot entire scenes if he felt the response was weak.
Further Reading