646f9e108c Harold "Speedy" Swift, a fan of Babe Ruth and the New York Yankees, saves from extinction the city's last horse-drawn trolley, operated by his girlfriend's grandfather. Harold Swift, nicknamed Speedy, loves the New York Yankees more than anything. His preoccupation with baseball and the Yankees has prevented him from being able to focus on and thus keep the various jobs that he's had, such as as a soda jerk and cab driver. The one other thing he may love just as much is his girlfriend, Jane Dillon. After an adventurous trip to Coney Island together, Speedy realizes that he wants to marry Jane, which means needing to get and keep a job. But before she can get married, she wants to ensure that the affairs of her grandfather, Pop Dillon, are finalized. He owns and operates the last horse drawn streetcar in New York City, in what is perhaps the most idyllic section of town. Most of the big streetcar companies want to buy Pop out for a song, but when Speedy learns that there is a planned merger of all streetcar services in New York City which cannot go ahead until all the smaller franchisees, such as Pop, are bought out, Speedy encourages Pop to hold out for a lucrative deal. As such, the large streetcar owners work nefariously behind the scenes to ruin Pop's business. Speedy, with the help of Pop's equally aged friends and a stray dog that followed Speedy home from Coney Island, do whatever they can to make sure Pop has what is truly coming to him, which may not happen if they can't stop the wrong-doings of those big streetcar companies. We are so fortunate that this film among many of Lloyds films that had not been in release for many years has recently been restored to it's original glory. This is a well done light romantic comedy which is what Lloyd not only specialized in but nearly invented as a medium.<br/><br/>While it covers new ground, it also covers stuff Lloyd has done before with the street cars. If you have seen Girl Shy, you will realize that a lot of the street car stuff was done in that movie too though that one has a stronger story than this one.<br/><br/>Lloyd's soda jerk chasing the young girl of his dreams in the basic plot. The wonderful covering of the old New York City area including the original Coney Island rides makes this film historic. Keep in mind, this was filmed in 1927 & released in 1928. That means when Babe Ruth makes his appearance in this movie, he is having on of his great seasons with the 27 Yankees. He is hitting 60 home runs that season. It would be over 30 years before Roger Maris broke that mark in 1961.<br/><br/>This film does have some of Lloyds clever humor. The last Harold Lloyd silent comedy, "Speedy" is a yuk-filled feature boasting some impressive thrill scenes and Jazz Age Manhattan ambiance. If not as satisfying as some earlier Lloyd silents, it manages to showcase just why Lloyd was the most popular of the big three silent clowns.<br/><br/>Harold plays the title character, who may have gotten his name from undiagnosed ADD. Speedy flits from job to job while he dreams of baseball and his girl Jane (Ann Christy). Jane wants to marry Speedy, but first there's the business of her grandfather's horse-drawn trolley, which a greedy railway magnate wants to put out of business any way he can.<br/><br/>As other commenters here point out, this is less a unified film than a sequence of four shorts stitched together as follows: 1. Harold the soda jerk. 2. Harold and Jane at Coney Island. 3. Harold the taxi driver. 4. Harold saves Pop's trolley. The only serious concession to "Speedy's" feature length is that some business of short #4 is introduced between shorts #1 and #2.<br/><br/>Add to that the hit-or-miss gagginess of much of the film, and what you wind up with is less satisfying than Lloyd classics like "The Freshman" or "The Kid Brother." Even early Lloyd features like "Grandma's Boy" or "Dr. Jack" had loftier goals than the laugh-driven "Speedy". Yet "Speedy" is funny most of the time, and does work in some other ways, too.<br/><br/>Though I'm not a Yankees fan, I'm a sucker with any movie that features Babe Ruth. Here, in a cameo, he does excellent work as a passenger afraid for his life getting a mad cab ride from the star-struck Speedy.<br/><br/>"Even when you strike out, you miss 'em close," Speedy enthuses, eyes on Babe and not the road.<br/><br/>"I don't miss 'em half as close as you do!" Babe yells back.<br/><br/>It's cool just seeing these two icons share the screen, and if you watch just before the 53rd minute, you'll see a third icon, Lou Gehrig, slip into the background during a Harold-Babe two-shot and proceed to stick his tongue out at the camera!<br/><br/>As fun as moments like that are, "Speedy" doesn't add up to the sum of its parts until the final third, when we resume the story of Pop's horse-drawn trolley. There we get a fitting capper to Lloyd's silent-clown career, with a hilarious street battle between young toughs and old coots fought with flypaper, horseshoes, and a pegleg, among other implements. Then there's the final trolley ride, which employs a horrific-looking real accident to create some tension over the question of whether Harold will save the day.<br/><br/>Like many note, "Speedy" is as captivating for what you see in the background. So much of it was shot for real in Manhattan, and even when there's no comically rude Hall-of-Fame first basemen in sight, there's a lot of energy and activity on view, whether its tugboats on the Hudson, taxis on Times Square, or street urchins ingenuously looking at the camera wondering what's up. The Coney Island sequence is the most labored part of the film for me, but it's still not only inventively played out but especially edifying for those of us who wonder what amusement parks were like before the age of the steel roller-coaster or more stringent safety regulations.<br/><br/>Lloyd and director Ted Wilde knew what the audience wanted, and deliver it here with a cherry on top. If not quite as on the money after more than 80 years, "Speedy" is still well worth watching for fans of Lloyd and silent comedy.
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