Cheap Girl Shy (Video) (Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston) (Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Girl Shy

The Best of the Best
Harold Lloyd's treatment of the romantic comedy is, indeed, underappreciated, but if anything that makes enjoying his work even more appropriate. Girl Shy is my favorite of his, not only because of the fine acting and apparent originality, but also because it contains one of the most beautiful scores in film history - Robert Israel's music is superb. Of course, moods swing in this classic, ranging down to despair and up to the heights of ecstasy. Suspenseful hope, so lacking in many of today's pictures, is here as well, as he puts the pieces of the check together to discover just how many 0s it contains.

Brilliant! Someday they'll release all these on DVD and maybe make some soundtracks available...

---

Harold Lloyd's Poor Boy seeks the heart of a Rich Girl
"Girl Shy" is one of the most uneven of the featured films made by Harold Lloyd, the most forgotten of the great silent comedians. Lloyd plays Harold Meadows, The Poor Boy, who falls for Mary Buckingham, the Rich Girl, played by Jobyna Ralston. As usual Lloyd's character is extremely shy and bashful, but this time around he is also a stutterer, and for some reason the actor seems uncomfortable in the part. The film has one of Lloyd's best race sequences at the end and also an exquisitely tender and poignant scene when Harold is sitting in a rowboat, daydreaming of Mary, unaware that the reflection he sees in the water is really her, standing on a bridge thinking about him. But the fantasy scenes inspired by the book Harold is reading, "The Secret of Making Love," are definitely at odds with the overall tone of the film. "My Vampire" and "My Flapper" are funny on their own terms, but are ironically too realistic given the rest of film. Still, the best parts of this film are classic Lloyd and more than make up for any perceived shortcomings. You know, only about half of Lloyd's silent comedies are currently available on videotape, when it is obvious every single one of them should be out where they can be seen by new generations of fans.

---

This is one of the best silent comedies I've ever seen.
Harold Lloyd made many great comedies, but "Girl Shy" is definitely one of the best. Not only is Harold painfully shy around girls, but he stutters when he gets nervous, and girls make him nervous. Jobyna Ralston is wonderful as Harold's true love, and the scene where he tries to make her leave him because he's not worthy of her is a real tearjerker. The scenes at the publisher where Harold tries to sell his book are hilarious--the office girls are so lively and it doesn't seem possible that this scene was shot more than 70 years ago. The final chase is a classic--Harold uses horses, streetcars, trains, and anything else he can to rescue his girl from marrying a bigamist. A real treat to watch.