Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

Girl Shy (1924)

Harold Lloyd stars as the stuttering girl-shy boy and Jobyna Ralston is adorable (as usual) as the big city girl in this feature-length romantic comedy directed by Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor.

Harold is a small-town would-be author who has written a love manual for the young men of the world. By accident, he meets a girl from Los Angeles on a train and they bond as he opens up about his book, The Secret of Making Love, that he is now delivering to his publisher.

Of course, the action and comedy highlight is the extended sequence of Harold’s efforts to travel from Little Bend to Los Angeles to stop Jobyna’s wedding. Among the sights seen in the street views are the Granada Theatre (a small neighborhhod venue, presumably in Culver City) and the Western Costume Company Property Department.

This DVD edition of Girl Shy, produced for home video by Jeffrey Vance, has been transferred from a very-good to excellent 35mm print at a natural speed. There is moderate speckling and dust in the print but few DVD video editions look better.

The presentation is accompanied by an orchestral music score composed and arranged by Robert Israel, and an optional theater organ music score. The Israel score, performed by The Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra and members of The Robert Israel Orchestra, is wonderful. The anonymous organ score is very good.

For now, from what we’ve seen, this is the best home video edition available of Girl Shy. We encourage The Criterion Collection to consider adding this film to their line of excellent Blu-ray Disc editions of Harold’s films. Meanwhile, this is our recommended edition.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 1 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 1 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region 1 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

This DVD-R edition has been mastered from a very-good to excellent 35mm print. For a budget home video edition, the picture quality is quite good as it appears that the video transfer has been lifted (and hopefully licensed) from the New Line edition noted above.

The film is accompanied by an improvised music score performed on upright piano by Keith Taylor. Taylor has provided a number of musical accompaniments to Reel Vault editions of silent films and the performances are usually passable. Regretably, the tinkling and almost aimless piano (out-of-tune to our ear) is a liability of this otherwise notable home video edition.

We rarely recommend budget home video editions unless they are the only discs available. Such may be the case here. With the New Line edition noted above being long out-of-print and only sporadically available as a used item, this Reel Vault offering may currently be the best home video option for collectors.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

Other silent film music scores by ROBERT ISRAEL available on home video.