Transparent heart icon with white outline and + sign.

Life's busy, read it when you're ready!

Create a free account to save articles for later, keep track of past articles you’ve read, and receive exclusive access to all RP resources.

White magnifying glass.

Search thousands of RP articles

Articles, news, and reviews that celebrate God's truth.

Open envelope icon with @ symbol

Get Articles Delivered!

Articles, news, and reviews that celebrate God's truth. delivered direct to your Inbox!

A A
By:

Grandma’s Boy

Silent / Comedy
56 min; 1922
Rating: 7/10

While Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton are still famous today, there were actually three comedic stars of the silent film era. The largely forgotten Harold Lloyd was every bit as popular at the time, and with many of his films now entering the public domain and free to view online, he may have a chance of being so again.

In Grandma’s Boy, Lloyd plays a mama’s boy twice over, too timid to stand up to the town bully even when that bully is trying to steal his girl, and so cowardly he’ll rely on his little old grandmother to come to his rescue when a big burly tramp threatens him.

That protective grandmother has surely contributed to his cowardice, but she’s also determined to help fix it. When the tramp she chased off starts robbing stores and shooting at the townsfolk, the sheriff deputizes a posse to go after him. Grandma’s boy is deputized too, but he ends up running home in terror. That’s when grandma intervenes. She concocts a story about a magical charm that will protect anyone who holds it, then passes off what’s actually her umbrella handle as that charm. The now fearless young man grabs a firm hold of it and takes charge, braving car chases, gun battles, and fist fights to get his man.

Cautions

The magical charm is the supposed creation of a witch, but as is made clear at the film’s end, there was no witch, and thus no magic, and the boy’s superstitious belief was nonsense. Children might need to be told that despite the good result, grandma’s “little white fib” was still wrong. The only other warning would be not to mistake this for the crass 2006 film of the same name.

Conclusion

Acting in the silent film era was intentionally overdone, because the actors had only their body language and facial expression to communicate with. For a modern audience, that means all the acting comes off as over-acting, and that’s quite the flaw in a drama. However, it isn’t the same problem in a comedy like this, where the overacting can just add to the hilarity.

Another problem with older films is that the pacing is far slower than we’re used to today. That’s a flaw that YouTube can help fix. Just click on the settings (the little gear icon at the bottom of the frame) and change the playback speed from “normal” to 1.5 times. That’s something you couldn’t do in a talking picture, but for silent films it is a great option, sure to improve the experience for most audiences. What’s a little long at 56 minutes becomes a unique experience of cinema history when it is just 39 minutes.

My kids came in at about the halfway mark, stayed to the end, and gave what they saw two thumbs up. But even with that positive feedback I knew this one wouldn’t cut it as a family movie night selection when none of them asked to see it again from the start. This is best appreciated as the educational experience it is, a time travel trip to see films as they used to be.

Watch it for free below.

Enjoyed this article?

Get the best of RP delivered to your inbox every Saturday for free.



Red heart icon with + sign.
Family, Movie Reviews

The General

Comedy 80 min / 1927 RATING: 8/10 The General is equal parts comedy and action, with just a dash of romance thrown in as well. Johnnie Gray has two loves in his life: his steam engine “The General,” and his girl Annabelle. When the American Civil War begins Johnnie, like every loyal Southerner, lines up to enlist in the Confederate Army. But unbeknownst to poor Johnnie, train engineers aren’t allowed to sign up, as they are more valuable as engineers, not soldiers. Try as he might, he just can’t join the Army, and when he finally returns to Annabelle without successfully enlisting, she thinks it’s because he’s become a coward. She sends him away, telling Johnnie she will only see him again when he’s in uniform. Johnnie leaves, heartbroken, and returns to his other great love, his steam engine. But poor Johnnie is in for even greater heartache – Northern spies steal his General and take off with it down the rails toward the North. In an instant, Johnnie goes from being sad and lonely to determined and resourceful. He steals another train and chases after the spies and the stolen General in one of the most brilliant, madcap, action-packed sequences ever caught on film. I watched this film with teenagers and people in their twenties, thirties and forties and they all loved it. If you watch only one silent film in your life, make sure it’s The General. The film's copyright expired long ago, which means all sorts of companies have been free to publish it and sell their own copies. However, not all have done a good job. In the worst versions, the soundtrack doesn't match the action onscreen – it's just random classical music. You can get a glimpse of how a good soundtrack adds a whole other dimension by watching the Kino version's trailer below. Watch it once with the sound, then watch it again with the sound off. It's odd, but a good soundtrack really matters, even for (and actually, especially for) a silent film. So be sure to track down one of the good versions! ...