This YouTube video posted today details how Harold Lloyd used all 3 stadiums to film his classic film The Freshman, which is turning 100 this year.

Thanks! Note that the football is still a rugby ball and had not yet evolved into today's smaller ball.

Chabbear said:

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Thanks! Note that the football is still a rugby ball and had not yet evolved into today's smaller ball.

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The rounder ball makes it difficult to throw forward passes.

It looks like there are a number of buildings above the stadium where Witter Rugby field is today Anyone know what they were?

Thanks for sharing. Having grown up in LA and attending CAL, this was very cool.

okaydo said:

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This YouTube video posted today details how Harold Lloyd used all 3 stadiums to film his classic film The Freshman, which is turning 100 this year.

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Our football dominance was formidable at the time!

It is cool to see what Tightwad Hill looked like then before all the trees. Do we know that area became _a LOT_ more forested? Did the fire of 1923 burn that far south?

Great flick, like most of Lloyd's films.

Harold Lloyd > Buster Keaton > Charlie Chaplin

Cal88 said:

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Great flick, like most of Lloyd's films.

Harold Lloyd > Buster Keaton > Charlie Chaplin

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I am not qualified to give an opinion, but I find Buster most fascinating.


Ladt year, I audiobook'd these 2 books (released about the same time in early 2022), and both are pretty awesome.

One is straightforward cradle-to-grave biography. The other is more of an analysis on Buster and the world he came up in and how he was a TV pioneer of sorts. (for instance, he trained Lucille Ball before she embarked on I Love Lucy).

What a fun clip and another great find from okaydo, the finder of all sorts of things. That was a stadium-building frenzy in the state of California in the early 1920s! What a bonanza!

For all the generosity that John Arrillaga showed to his Alma Mater, Stanford, I think the planners made a big mistake when they replaced old Stanford Stadium with soul-less sterile Circus Minimus. They should have replaced the old structure with a smaller, trackless version, but built the new digs with some semblance of collegiate character and charm.

For all the inconveniences of California Memorial Stadium -- including the Bataan Death March required to get up there on home game Saturdays every Fall -- I love the fact that for over 100 years, students at the University of California have watched our beloved Golden Bears taking on all-comers in our picturesque old bowl tucked into the canyon.

okaydo said:

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Cal88 said:

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Great flick, like most of Lloyd's films.

Harold Lloyd > Buster Keaton > Charlie Chaplin

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I am not qualified to give an opinion, but I find Buster most fascinating.


Ladt year, I audiobook'd these 2 books (released about the same time in early 2022), and both are pretty awesome.

One is straightforward cradle-to-grave biography. The other is more of an analysis on Buster and the world he came up in and how he was a TV pioneer of sorts. (for instance, he trained Lucille Ball before she embarked on I Love Lucy).

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Yes Keaton is great too, big fan of him as well. Over the years I've seen a half dozen films with Lloyd and Keaton on the big screen with live musical accompagnement, the way these films were meant to be seen. If you live in SF, LA, NYC, Boston or even Paris, London or say Detroit, there are venues that regularly feature live accompagnement with silent film classics.

https://redfordtheatre.com/events/95th-anniversary-year-celebration-speedy-with-live-organ-accompaniment-and-appearance-by-harold-lloyds-granddaughter/

Cal88 said:

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Great flick, like most of Lloyd's films.

Harold Lloyd > Buster Keaton > Charlie Chaplin

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The best comedian is a matter of personal choice. I would put early Buster Keaton (prior to 1928) as number one. He would spend a lot of time and money making his films perfect.

Unfortunately when he joined MGM in 1928 he lost control of how much time and money he could spend in getting a film perfect. The result was a poorer product (although still funny)

Both Keaton and Lloyd were perfectionists. Given the kinds of stunts they pulled in their movies, they had to be... Keaton as well did a movie in 1927, "College", with a similar plotline as Lloyd's 1925 "The Freshman", in which Keaton inadvertently saves the day in the big race for the crew team.

Great British doc on Lloyd:



scenes from The Freshman at Memorial Stadium, taken from the 1924 Big Game:





Good article here :

https://silentlocations.com/2017/05/20/harold-lloyds-the-freshman-leads-the-san-francisco-silent-film-festival/

Excerpts:

"The Freshman was Lloyd's greatest hit, the third biggest release of 1925, and the second most successful comedy of the entire silent film era.

College enrollment soared after World War I, nearly doubling during the 1920s, while a new style of redblooded sports journalism, and the advent of radio, and live-game broadcasts, turned college football into a national obsession. With his winning personality, leading man looks, and team of clever gag writers, Lloyd was the perfect comedy star to bring the college craze to the big screen.

The USC campus was still rather small in 1925, and the UCLA campus in Westwood would not be established for another five years. So Lloyd filmed the campus scenes at Exposition Park instead, even though USC was just across the street. Buster Keaton would film scenes from his later 1927 campus comedy College at the same corner. You can read more about Harold and Buster filming at Exposition Park at this earlier post.

The USC football team originally played home games at modest Bovard Field, behind the USC Old College Building, equipped with wooden bleachers that seated only a few thousand people. Outmanned during the early years, the press dubbed the USC team the "Trojans" for fighting on despite overwhelming odds against betterequipped opponents. Lloyd filmed all of the football practice scenes at this field, used also for Keaton's baseball scenes in College, and for the football scenes in Keaton's Three Ages (1923).

Filming at the Rose Bowl horseshoe-shaped until the south end was closed over in 1928.
Fueled by the college football craze, California witnessed of the construction of four major stadiums during the early 1920s; Stanford Stadium opened in Palo Alto in 1921, followed by the Rose Bowl in Pasadena in 1922, and both the California Memorial Stadium in Berkeley and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 1923. Lloyd created The Freshman by blending footage shot at three of the four stadiums; most playing field sequences were staged at the Rose Bowl, medium views of Harold on the bench, with extras filling in the bleachers behind him, at the Coliseum, and wide full stadium views up at Berkeley.


Lloyd filmed the wide stadium view scenes at Cal during the November 22, 1924 Big Game between the University of California and Stanford University. Harold and his crew witnessed an exciting match, as Stanford overcame a 14 point deficit in the final minutes to reach a 2020 tie, capping an undefeated season for both teams.

Unlike Chaplin and Keaton, who filmed early on several times in San Francisco and near Truckee, filming The Freshman at Berkeley is apparently the first time Harold Lloyd ever left Southern California to shoot. Lloyd quickly shot key scenes on the field during half-time, later joking that he employed 90,000 extras to appear in his film."

Cal88 said:

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Both Keaton and Lloyd were perfectionists. Given the kinds of stunts they pulled in their movies, they had to be... Keaton as well did a movie in 1927, "College", with a similar plotline as Lloyd's 1925 "The Freshman", in which Keaton inadvertently saves the day in the big race for the crew team.

Great British doc on Lloyd:



scenes from The Freshman at Memorial Stadium, taken from the 1924 Big Game:





Good article here :

https://silentlocations.com/2017/05/20/harold-lloyds-the-freshman-leads-the-san-francisco-silent-film-festival/

Excerpts:

"The Freshman was Lloyd's greatest hit, the third biggest release of 1925, and the second most successful comedy of the entire silent film era.

College enrollment soared after World War I, nearly doubling during the 1920s, while a new style of redblooded sports journalism, and the advent of radio, and live-game broadcasts, turned college football into a national obsession. With his winning personality, leading man looks, and team of clever gag writers, Lloyd was the perfect comedy star to bring the college craze to the big screen.

The USC campus was still rather small in 1925, and the UCLA campus in Westwood would not be established for another five years. So Lloyd filmed the campus scenes at Exposition Park instead, even though USC was just across the street. Buster Keaton would film scenes from his later 1927 campus comedy College at the same corner. You can read more about Harold and Buster filming at Exposition Park at this earlier post.

The USC football team originally played home games at modest Bovard Field, behind the USC Old College Building, equipped with wooden bleachers that seated only a few thousand people. Outmanned during the early years, the press dubbed the USC team the "Trojans" for fighting on despite overwhelming odds against betterequipped opponents. Lloyd filmed all of the football practice scenes at this field, used also for Keaton's baseball scenes in College, and for the football scenes in Keaton's Three Ages (1923).

Filming at the Rose Bowl horseshoe-shaped until the south end was closed over in 1928.
Fueled by the college football craze, California witnessed of the construction of four major stadiums during the early 1920s; Stanford Stadium opened in Palo Alto in 1921, followed by the Rose Bowl in Pasadena in 1922, and both the California Memorial Stadium in Berkeley and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 1923. Lloyd created The Freshman by blending footage shot at three of the four stadiums; most playing field sequences were staged at the Rose Bowl, medium views of Harold on the bench, with extras filling in the bleachers behind him, at the Coliseum, and wide full stadium views up at Berkeley.


Lloyd filmed the wide stadium view scenes at Cal during the November 22, 1924 Big Game between the University of California and Stanford University. Harold and his crew witnessed an exciting match, as Stanford overcame a 14 point deficit in the final minutes to reach a 2020 tie, capping an undefeated season for both teams.

Unlike Chaplin and Keaton, who filmed early on several times in San Francisco and near Truckee, filming The Freshman at Berkeley is apparently the first time Harold Lloyd ever left Southern California to shoot. Lloyd quickly shot key scenes on the field during half-time, later joking that he employed 90,000 extras to appear in his film."

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Same guy who made that video wrote that article.