Fred C. Newmeyer | Grandma's Boy / 1922

granny’s advice in how to turn a queer wimp into a man

by Douglas Messerli

 

Hal Roach, Sam Taylor, Jean Havez, and H.M. Walker (screenplay), Fred C. Newmeyer (director) Grandma’s Boy / 1922

       

Fred C. Newmeyer’s Grandma’s Boy with Harold Lloyd is often lauded as one of the early pioneer full-length comedies which successfully combined gags and coherent narrative. It was a big success in its day, and remains one of Lloyd’s most popular works even today.

      The story of a weak and cowardly young man bullied from childhood into his young adulthood—still today one of the stereotyped patterns of a gay boy—is repeated in the first third of the film as Grandma’s Boy (a variation of the usual Boy which Lloyd long portrayed), attempts to court His Girl (Mildred Davis), despite the numerous difficulties of his outdated and cheap suits provided by Grandma (Anna Townsend), his general shyness and clumsy nervousness, and the endless evil machinations of His Rival (Charles Stevenson), who generally pushes him out of the way, steals any evidence of good intentions to the girl or her mother, and tosses the Boy into a well.

     Upon a second visit to the Girl, this time having replaced his shrunken suit with one of his grandfather’s articles of clothing that Grandma has kept from the 1860s, the terrified Boy battles moth balls buried deep without his suit coat, kittens attracted to the guava paste jam with which Grandma has shined his shoes, and the general thrashings of the Rival, particularly after the two run into the kitchen to wash out their mouths after having consumed some of the moth balls the Boy has tossed into the Girl’s box of candy. 

      But the film shifts significantly when men arrive to report that a drifter (named in the film as "The Rolling Stone," played by Dick Sutherland), has been seen robbing a store and has shot a townsman attempting to detain the criminal. The whole town is in an uproar, as the Girl’s father, first the Rival, and, then the Boy are made into Deputy Sheriffs, required now to join the fray of finding the thief and murderer.

      The Boy, returning to retrieve his hat, misses the car to the event and is forced to stumble by himself, but can get no further than the barn where, in the dark, he is terrified by chickens, a horse, a pig, and a harness that falls upon him in his clumsy maneuvers to escape the animal outrage. By the time he’s finished in the barn he is so frightened that he races back home, pulling chairs, sideboards, and tables against the door as he retreats under of the covers of his bed.

       By morning, he is embarrassed by a timidity that has now reached the level of pure cowardice as he explains in tears to his beloved grandmother. She, in turn, tells a tale about his Grandfather (also played by Lloyd) who similarly appeared to himself as a coward in the Civil War. Having been sent to get Yankee secrets, the young Confederate soldier is terrified of even getting near the enemy, but now finds himself strangely at the very headquarters of the Yankee leaders.

      A gypsy woman provides him with a special token that she insists if he carry with him will protect him, and the young Rebel is suddenly able to make his way indoors, overhear the Yankee battle plans and steal the secret document by serving up a potent alcoholic drink to the soldiers. He wins the day and is rewarded by his Rebel leaders when they arrive to find everyone passed out.

      Granny, to help her grandson find his own mojo, presents him with just such a token. And the last third of the film is devoted to a hilarious series of events where the Boy joins the other members of the city posse held up in a gun battle with the violent villain just outside of town.

      Amazingly the Boy is able to enter the cabin and knock out “The Rolling Stone,” but when he comes to the others race off again in terror, and it is left up to the Boy to chase down the thief once more, and then a third time, finally bringing him to town and justice in a baby pram.

      All the girls now have fallen in love with the Boy, and His Girl is ready to flirt when, once more, the Rival shows up, this time the Boy ready to take him on. A seemingly never-ending brawl takes place, as the two roll about the barn and fields before the Boy, losing and then rediscovering his magic charm, finally is able to deliver his Rival into the well, demand the Girl’s love, and win her assurances that she will marry him. Grandma explains that the lucky charm is really just the handle to her umbrella, lying simply to help her grandson realize his own innate powers.

     Everything ends in a happy heterosexual marriage destined, so we perceive, all along—despite the Boy’s and our own suspicions of his being a homo weakling. I presume that this is the reason—along with the male hand-holding scene, when the Boy and his Rival hold hands behind the Girl’s back, each thinking that the other’s hand was that of the Girl’s—that Grandma’s Boy is listed in most LGBTQ compilations.

     Let me suggest that if it remains on those lists it should be read as a warning not a recommendation. The film may be charming if you believe that it is necessary to find a way for a “meek, modest and retiring youth,” whose “boldest moment is singing out loud in church”—in other words, a queer boy who everyone except his grandmother in the film mock—should naturally seek to marry a flirtatious and rather blind young girl who is equally interested in the school bully. It is a delightfully comedic work only if you think that everyone has the right and does carry a weapon and shoots on first sight; that homeless men should immediately be shooed off; that a posse is necessary to scare of such a terrifying threat; and that, most importantly, the best thing possible for a young timid man is that he capture a criminal and himself become a bully to prove his worth to a girl who he can now demand that she love and marry him.

      This is a lovely movie for all who believe that Grandmas should encourage their men into civil war, mature into violence, and lock themselves away in heterosexual marriage in small town USA.

      I’m sorry, but I think for a more encouraging LGBTQ message I’ll look elsewhere.

 

Los Angeles, July 15, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (July 2022).