Speedy
About Speedy
Harold "Speedy" Swift (Harold Lloyd), a Yankees fan, loses a soda-fountain job when a baseball score in a window makes him crush a flower delivery. In an old corner of New York, Pop Dillon still runs the last horse-drawn streetcar. His granddaughter Jane (Ann Christy) will not marry Speedy until Pop's line is safe. Streetcar man W. S. Wilton offers $10,000. Speedy, seeing a monopoly story in the paper, changes the figure to $70,000. Wilton refuses and threatens to force Pop out. Speedy and Jane spend a day at Coney Island. Hired as a cabbie, Speedy drives Babe Ruth to Yankee Stadium, gets a ticket, and is fired when the owner sees him in the seats. He overhears Wilton: if the horsecar misses a day, Pop loses the franchise. Neighbors fight off the goons. The horse and car are stolen anyway. Speedy gets them back across the city, and Wilton pays $100,000.
Cast & crew
More about Speedy
Ted Wilde directed the silent version. Harold Lloyd produced. Walter Lundin photographed the Hollywood work and the New York locations. Jesse Greer wrote the score. Albert DeMond wrote the titles. The story is by John Grey, J. A. Howe, Lex Neal, and Howard Emmett Rogers. Paramount released the silent film on 7 April 1928. A version with three dialogue sequences, directed uncredited by Clyde Bruckman, came out on 15 December 1928. The Coney Island scenes were reported to cost $150,000. The English Wikipedia gives 86 minutes. Wikidata lists 85.
Themes
Background
Lloyd's last silent feature, released in April 1928 and put out again that December with three talking sequences.
Making
The company shot on New York streets and at Coney Island, besides the Hollywood work.
Look
Walter Lundin photographed it, including the New York street work and the Coney Island day.
Music
Jesse Greer wrote the original score. The December 1928 reissue added three dialogue sequences.
Preservation
UCLA holds complete silent and sound-on-film versions. The trailer and the 16-inch soundtrack discs also survive. The Commons copy is the trailer.
Notes
- Babe Ruth plays himself and hands Speedy a ticket after the cab ride.
- Speedy posts the Yankees line score in the fountain window with doughnuts for zeroes.
- On the chase back he replaces a broken wheel with a manhole cover.
- Both the silent film and the part-talkie survive at the UCLA Film & Television Archive. The Commons file is the trailer.
Scenes
- Babe Ruth hangs on in Speedy's cab on the way to the Stadium.
- Speedy brings the stolen horsecar back on a manhole cover used as a wheel.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Speedy (1928, trailer).webm)
