Horatio Alger’s Younger Brother: Harold Lloyd and the Self-Made Man

For many of us, we get our entertainment and history from motion pictures.This has remained relatively true throughout the the roughly 120 years that popular films have existed. First we saw them at the nickelodeon, then in the movie palaces of the 1920s through the 1950s, and now in the 21st century we can stream them to smaller screens including our smart phones. During the history of the motion pictures, films often told us more about the time period they were produced in than the era depicted in the story line. Such is the case of the early silent films of Harold Lloyd. Filmed and released in the era that extolled the hero and the self -made man, these films have much to say about the American character.

“From the poverty and obscurity in which I was born and in which I passed my earliest years, I have raised myself to a state of affluence and some degree of celebrity in the world.”  (Franklin, B. 1)  The theme of raising one’s self up has long been a dominant strain in American thought and culture.  Ben Franklin, America’s premier sage, created a persona which seemed to provide a blueprint for “getting ahead” and many Americans followed his lead.  The very language of the culture encouraged the belief that a man’s destiny and fortune were dependent solely on the man himself.  Harold Lloyd and his “man in the glasses” character exemplified this model of the self-made man, still so popular in the culture of the 1920’s. 

            Tom Dardis called Lloyd “Tom Sawyer’s Younger Brother,” and equated him with the carefree Mark Twain character.  Twain’s character was in reality a reflection of another type of boyhood literature, the Horatio Alger “rags to riches” story.  Lloyd, and his on screen persona closely fit Alger’s “Ragged Dick”, character, the “plucky” boy who made good.  The relationship between Harold Lloyd and the 1920’s ideal of success, the self-made man, is reflected in his films and the drive for success evident in the American culture of the 1920’s. 

            The American concept of success and the self-made man has changed over its history.  In Apostles of the Self-Made Man, John Cawelti addressed the definition of success and the limitations in its quest.  Using both literary and historical sources he traced three strands of success that developed in American culture.  The first, in the tradition of the Protestant Ethic, stressed self-improvement for religious, moral or ethical fulfillment.  It provided the basis for self-help literature like the Horatio Alger stories, the rhetoric of “rags to riches.”  The second tradition emphasized “getting ahead.”  The ideal of economic or business success of the now.  While this strain used elements from the Protestant Ethic, it endorsed “initiative” rather than “industry,” “aggressiveness” rather than “frugality,” and “competitiveness” in place of “honesty.”  It was very much an economic type of success, and in the twentieth century it included political aspects of success.  The third strand was a more complex model, dealing with social progress.  It was the success of self-culture and was tied to individual fulfillment, measuring success in terms of social progress rather than by wealth or social status.(Cawelti 4-6)  These three strands did not progress chronologically through American history;  often they overlapped and sometimes even seemed to contradict one another. 

            One of the earliest symbol for success in America was Thomas Jefferson’s yeoman farmer, the rural hero who demonstrated the superiority of the agrarian way of life.  Untainted by “artificial aristocratic” influences, the “country-boy” succeeds through the application of “village virtue.”  (Cawelti 25)  One did not actually have to be a yeoman to be successful, but one did have to have his characteristics.  This was the success demonstrated in Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography.  To Jefferson and Franklin’s examples late nineteenth century authors like Ralph Waldo Emerson added the image of the self-cultured gentleman.  This notion which represented the third strand of success was altered by writers who came after Emerson, the notion of self-reliance was expanded and became “positive thinking.”(Cawelti 92) 

            The Horatio Alger stories were based on an extension of the country-boy myth and positive thinking.  But Alger’s heroes are not truly self-made nor do they become truly successful.  Rather than being a blueprint for getting ahead in business, they are stories which extol the virtues of the proper employee.(Cawelti 121)   

            The proponents of the success myth in the twentieth century took the agrarian ideal and the Protestant Ethic and adapted them to an ideal of success that was more compatible with the industrial realities of the country.  In a time of expanding industry and mounting personal fortunes, these “Philosophers of Success” provided an explanation and an apology for the successful man.  Harold Lloyd’s on screen persona, the “glasses character” provided the perfect depiction of the rising young man, an image that was a reflection of his off-screen life.

            Lloyd described himself to his biographer as “a plain, freckled, ordinary American kid,”  and to complete the picture of the Twain-like character he recounted a childhood episode which involved white washing his grandmother’s fence.(Dardis 4-6)  A youthful entrepreneur, his early business enterprises included  a popcorn business, and a paper route;  even at age twelve he was determined to live the American dream.  As he was fond of quoting “If you’re short, grow.  This is America.” (Dardis 6)  His attitude was consistent with the Alger stories and the lessons of the McGuffey readers which educated generations of Americans throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century.  Lloyd was determine to succeed at life and he found his niche in the movies.  His first roles were not satisfying because they did not allow him use his unique talents to the fullest extent.  He was not happy with those early comedy shorts, nor did they afford him great success.  When he finally developed a character that not only could be a vehicle for comedy but a social commentary as well, American movie-goers made him a star.

                             

            The “Glasses character” was a mild satire of the “all-American boy,” a character who exhibited ambition, perseverance and the possibility for success.  He was a character who could struggle, fall in love, fail, and could finally emerge triumphant.  He was a character who symbolized youth on the rise, whether he was an idler who develops a purpose in life, a soda jerk, a sales clerk, a sailor, or just a farm boy.  He was a character who truly embodied the virtues taught in the McGuffey readers, virtues which included modesty, “thoughtfulness, obedience, and happiness of outlook.” (Mosier 152)

            Lloyd’s first feature length film using the “glasses character” was Sailor Made Man, produced in 1921.  Harold plays a idle rich boy who decides to join the navy in order to win the hand a girl, and once he enlists he begins to develop the traits of the successful young man.  By chance his ship docks in the same port as his girl friend’s yacht and he arrives in town just in time to save her from the advances of a lustful sheik.  In an artfully crafted sequence which features an intricate string of gags he rescues his lady love and all live happily ever after.  

The theme of social regeneration developed in Sailor Made Man became an integral part of the Lloyd character, and was expanded in his next film, 1922’s Grandma’s Boy.  This film drew heavily from the success images of the 1920’s culture.  Lloyd plays young Harold, the “coward of the county,”  “The boldest thing he ever did was to sing out loud in church.” (Dardis 109)  In a scene where he and the town bully compete for the hand of the prettiest girl in town he is even too timid to acknowledge that he is eating moth balls instead of candy as he sits in her parlor.  To prove his “bravery” Harold is coerced into joining the manhunt for a prowler who is terrorizing the neighborhood, but his fears seem to paralyze him.  His grandmother tells him a story about his grandfather and how he overcame cowardice while fighting in the American Civil War.  Told in flashback, Lloyd also plays grandpa complete with antique eye glasses.  At the end of the story, Grandma gives the young man Grandpa’s talisman;  armed with the charm Harold can now conquer the prowling villain and become the town hero.  With his new found courage he faces down his old nemesis, the neighborhood boy who has been making his life miserable for years.  In the course of the fight sequence, Harold briefly loses the charm and his courage.  He regains the charm only to have it fall down the well, but Granny  tells him not to worry over the loss because it was really only the handle of her umbrella.  She made up the story;  his own strength and not the charm was responsible for his success.  With his new found courage, he asks the girl to marry him “at once.” (Dardis 110)  In Grand Ma’s Boy, Lloyd “represented the success ethic of American, the wish-fulfillment of ordinary people.” (Senyard 76)  As Tom Dardis noted, ” Harold’s films were frequently at dead center in the depiction of some shared deep concerns about courage, social mobility, growing pains, and even love.” (Dardis 112) 

One of his most famous films, Safety Last (1923) addresses more closely the symbols of social mobility.   Safety Last is arguably one of the best of Lloyd’s films.  The film is short on plot but it is long on visual gags and stunts.  It was a mixture of comedy, dare devil stunts, and the inevitable love story.  It also shared the themes of many of the success novels of the day.  The main character is willing to do anything for success;  he is a country boy who must “make good” in the city, and the “girl-back-home” is his motivation.  This film allowed Lloyd to perfect the more technical elements of his craft.  The center piece of the action is Harold’s climb up the side of a big city skyscraper.  It took several months to film the sequence and Lloyd’s company built special shooting platforms to create the illusion of height for the climb.  The result was a sequence which both terrified the audience and made them laugh. 

            True to the Horatio Alger model, Harold is a country boy employed as a lowly shop clerk, trying to succeed in business so that he can marry the girl back home.  He gets an unwelcome surprise  when she comes to visit him unexpectedly.  To impress her he pretends to be a executive, and this deception sets up a series of comic gags which ultimately lead to his great publicity stunt which will prove to the boss that he is truly management material.  As  store advertisement Harold stages a “human fly” building-climb, and convinces his roommate, Bill Strothers, a dare devil climber to carryout the stunt.  The stunt man never gets to climb because as Lloyd explained, “When the time comes for Strothers to climb, his enemy the cop is found to be patrolling the beat in front of the store.  He gives chase to Strothers. . . . I reluctantly start to climb.” (Dardis 123)  The policeman will not give up the chase and Harold is forced to climb the entire building.  This sequence is the most clear cut of the Horatio Alger model:

            “the climb becomes the most decisive event in the boys life: he must climb if he wants that raise, that promotion, that girl In the midst of this comedy sequence, Lloyd strayed into areas of intense emotion:  audiences have never ceased being powerfully moved by Harold’s lonely struggle.” (Dardis 123)

The sequence becomes a “metaphor for Lloyd’s upward mobility, in face of all odds.” (Senyard 79)  Another film which highlights the notion of upward mobility, or “transformation” film, was Lloyd’s The Freshman (1925).

            The Freshman played on the 1920’s public interest in college life.  The plot line was predictable for  “college films” of the time:  small town boy goes to college, becomes football hero and gets the girl.  “The notion that hard work, with a little luck, will win the prize — any prize — is present in all of Lloyd’s films of the twenties,” and is the main theme in The Freshman.(Dardis 160)  In the film Harold Lamb goes to Tate College with a very naive view of college life gathered from films he has seen.  He quickly becomes the butt of campus jokes and mistakenly believes that the fraternity men are his friends.   In an effort to fit in he tries to join the football team, but instead of getting a chance to play, he becomes the designated practice dummy. 

            On the train to school Harold had met a local girl named Peggy, and the two of them are attracted to each other.  The relationship seems to be doomed because she is a working girl and he is busy becoming “big man on campus” and must stick to his college “friends.”  Peggy knows the truth but she can’t bear to tell him. 

            In an effort to impress his new friends Harold sponsors the fall dance.  In the 1920’s, as in other eras, a new suit was a sign of success.  As if to prove the old adage “clothes make the man,” Harold orders a new suit for the occasion, but the drunken tailor only had time to baste it together, and accompanies him to the dance in case there are any problems.  Harold and his new suit could have been a scene out of Alger’s Ragged Dick:

             “When Dick was dressed in his new attire, with his face and hands clean, and his hair brushed, it was difficult to imagine that he was the same boy.  He now looked quite handsome and might readily have been taken for a young gentleman.” (Alger 58)

  The “snowball gag” which Lloyd builds around his suit creates a comic but poignant sequence.  Bit by bit the suit begins to come apart while Harold is on the dance floor.  Not only does the suit unravel, so do Harold’s illusions about his new friends, none the less, he is determined “to make good” at the big football game the next day.  Harold warms the bench and watches as his team struggles against a much stronger opponent, near the end of the game the coach is forced to send him in because there are no more substitutes left uninjured. The game concludes with a daring run by Harold which includes a series of razzle-dazzle plays and stunts.  He just manages to get the ball across the goal line to win the game.  He is truly the campus hero, but he has attained something more valuable:  his girl and his pride;  he is a true success. 

           “He was decent but determined.  He was speedy, a man on the     move, somebody who would make the final touchdown even if every player on the opposite side was sitting on top of him. In this he seemed to epitomize the optimism, energy, and exuberance of a burgeoning America.” (Senyard 80)

            One of the last of Lloyd’s silent films, The Kid Brother, (1927), also considered to be one of his best, was a model of social and moral success.  It had everything going for it, great story, great gags, great main character.  It is the story of another country boy trying to make good.  Lloyd plays Harold Hickory, the physically weak youngest son of the county sheriff.  He resembles a young Abe Lincoln long held up as the perfect hero to the young school children who were educated by the McGuffey Readers still in use in the 1920’s.  All who would follow the example of Lincoln should develop the “Christian virtues of thrift, labor, industry, honesty, punctuality, and good-will;”  these were the qualities which “carried men to the successes which daily could be witnessed by the humblest of men.” (Mosier 122) 

            In this film Lloyd’s country-boy character, Harold Hickory,  takes on the qualities of a male Cinderella.  His older brothers work with his father who is the local sheriff, while he stays home to do the laundry.  The opening scene at the farm lets his audience know how clever Harold really is, as the famous Lloyd “pull-back” shot reveals that Harold has tied the laundry to a kite for “air-drying.” 

            Harold’s love interest in this film is Mary Powers (Jobyna Ralston).  She is the owner of the Original Mammoth Medicine Show, but the business is actually run by Sandoni the repulsive strong-man, and Flash Farrell, the shifty publicity agent.  When the Medicine Show arrives in town they stop at the sheriffs home to obtain a permit for their performance.  The sheriff is not home but they see Harold dressed in his father’s vest, badge, hat and gun and mistake him for the lawman.  For Harold it is love at first sight and when Mary asks for the show permit he realizes his lowly position.  Unwilling to admit who he really is, Harold gives them a permit.  They set up the show and Mary goes off for a walk in the woods where she is accosted by Sandoni, Harold arrives and “saves” her.  They talk awhile and Harold is more smitten than ever.  They say good-bye and Mary moves off toward town.  Harold is reluctant to see her go and he begins to climb a tree.  As she gets farther away he must climb higher and higher to continue their farewell.  Finally she is just a speck in the distance and he has reached the top of the pine.  Sometimes the young man’s rise is symbolic, and sometimes he is just up a tree.

            Sheriff Hickory finds out about the medicine show and sends Harold to town to close it down.  There is a fight and the wagon is destroyed by an accidental fire.  Harold takes Mary home for the night but tries to hide her from the rest of his woman-fearing  family.  The next sequence features the nightgown clad brothers trying to hide from her.  Mary does not stay the night;  she is taken away by a nosy neighbor who does not think it “proper” for her to stay in a house “with all those men.”   The next morning the brothers try to serve her breakfast in bed, but it is really Harold under the covers.  This comic scene is interrupted by a group of townspeople who accuse the sheriff of stealing the town’s “dam building” money he was supposed to be protecting.  Harold’s brothers rush out to try and find the real thief, but Harold cannot go, because its “man’s work.”

            Mary convinces him to summon up the courage to try and help his father;  he kisses her and dashes off.  He does not get far however.  His old enemy, the neighborhood bully, knocks him out and he falls into a rowboat which drifts down the river and out into the bay toward the sinister hulk of decaying ship decaying in the harbor.  The ship is where Sandoni and Farrell, the real thieves, have hidden the money.  Sandoni is still onboard and he and Harold struggle over the money satchel.  The fight sequence is both comic and acrobatic in the Lloyd style.  Only when Harold and the villain fall into the water does the young man get the upper hand, Sandoni cannot swim.  Harold rows to shore on a boat of life-preservers he has dropped over the villain.  He returns to town a hero, both to his father, and Mary.  He is now a “real Hickory.”  His rise is not spectacular, but it is the success he has wished for all of his life.

            The pursuit of success is present in some form or another in all of Lloyd’s silent films, and his on-screen character remains a reflection of the American success ethic.  His naive character did not survive the shift to “talking picture,” and the model of the brash young man on the way up did not play well during the  Depression years.  “Harold” is the epitome of the self-made man.  “The Lloyd hero was basically an uncomplicated fellow. . . . [and] he [was] closer to the mood and ideology of the time,” than any of his contemporaries. (Senyard 80)  Lloyd the producer and businessman lived the success dream of the 1920’s.  His films consistently made money and he invested wisely.  When he died in 1971 his estate was valued at approximately $6.5 million.  Today audiences admire Lloyd for his craft as a filmmaker, but they often fail to understand the appeal his character had for his generation, mainly because they do not share the mind set or “assumptions” of his era.  As Walter Kerr explains: 

           ” What was lucky for Lloyd — his falling heir to a national archetype — is unlucky for us . . . The myth of the good American has lately slipped away from us;  we look about for other, much more complicated, icons to show us back to ourselves.” (Kerr 210)

 Even so Americans still recognize the urge for success, and still strive to achieve it.  “Belief in the self-made man requires only an act of faith, and as every Sunday school boy knows, faith is simply the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Wylie 174) 

Bibliography

Agee, James.  Agee on Film, Reviews and Comments.  New York:             McDowell, Obolensky, Inc., 1958.

Alger, Horatio.  Ragged Dick and Mark the Match Boy.  New York:  Collier Books, 1962.

Butler, Ivan.  Silent Magic:  Rediscovering the Silent Film Era.  New York:  Ungar  Publishing, 1968.

Cahn, William.  Harold Lloyd’s World of Comedy.  London:  George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1966.

Cawelti, John G.  Apostles of the Self-Made Man:  Changing Concepts of Success in America.  Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1965.

Dardis, Tom.  Harold Lloyd, The Man on the Clock.  New York: Viking Press, 1983.

Everson, William.  American Silent Film.  New York:  Oxford University Press, 1978.

Franklin, Benjamin.  Autobiography and Other Writings.  Russell Nye ed.  Boston:  Houghton Mifflin, 1959.

Franklin, Joe.  Classics of the Silent Screen, A Pictorial Treasury.  Secaucus:  The Citadel Press, 1959.

Kerr, Walter.  The Silent Clowns.  New York:  Alfred A. Knopf, 1975.

Scharnhorst, Gary.  Horatio Alger, Jr.  Boston:  Twayne Publishing, 1980.

Scharnhorst, Gary with Jack Bales.  The Lost Life of Horatio Alger, Jr.  Bloomington:  Indiana University Press, 1985.

Senyard, Neil.  Classic Movie Comedians.  New York: Smithmark Publishers, Inc., 1992.

Tebbel, John.  From Rags to Riches: Horatio Alger Jr.and the American Dream.  New York:  The Macmillan Company,1963.

Wenden, D.J.  The Birth of the Movies.  New York:  P. Dutton, 1975.

Westerhoff, John H, III. McGuffey and His Readers, Piety, Morality, and Education in Nineteenth-Century America.  Nashville:  Abingdon, 1978.

Wylie, Irvin G.  The Self-Made Man in America, The Myth of Rags to Riches.  New York:  The Free Press, 1954.

Films

A Sailor-Made Man

Grandma’s Boy

Safety Last

The Freshman

The Kid Brother