Typically avoiding the obvious, Criterion have picked
Harold not Charlie or Buster to lead the American invasion and what a sound
choice that is: The Twenties highest-grossing comedian given the prominence he
deserves in a film that highlights his timing, unrivalled gag-construction and
the endurance of a persona that is perhaps the most malleable and enduring of
all…
Directed by Ted Wilde and produced by Lloyd, Speedy is his last silent film and it
feels like a farewell to every trick and fluid expression soon to be curtailed
by the tyranny of the fixed microphone.
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| Harry and Ann Christy - four different fun fairs were used as Coney Island |
Fittingly it features one man’s fight against the on-rush
of progress: a battle that can only be won with ultimate defeat assured and
only the manner of surrender to be decided on. Needless to say, Lloyd’s
character isn’t going to take anything lying down and you’re never going to bet
against him winning the peace.
It also features your actual Babe Ruth doing a fine job
of being Babe Ruth. Seems like an OK guy for such a huge sportsman but they put
deeds first and wealthy contracts second in the era of silent sport…
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| The Sultan of Swat hails a cab |
My great grandfather drove a tram in Liverpool at around
this time although they stopped using horses here in 1903 and 1917 in NYC –
Lloyd’s story was already looking back in 1928 – and I suppose that gives me
especial sympathy for Pop Dillon (Bert Woodruff) the driver of the last horse
and tram in New York. He plods a lone track and is under intense pressure from
the automated competitors all too eager to mechanise the entire network.
Pop offers a service as slow as it is reliable and as
cheap as it is friendly: his customers rely on him and he’s a pivotal figure in
a commercial culture still run by Victorian men – some of whom go back to the
Civil War. It's Grenwich Village as it was and even by 1928 the community was changing.
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| Bert Woodrfuff and Ann Christy |
Pop has a delightful grand-daughter, Jane (Ann Christy –
another looker for Lloyd) who dotes on him whilst also being incredibly
supportive of her endlessly-exasperating boyfriend, Harold 'Speedy' Swift (Lloyd) who is quick but only in terms of losing patience, concentration and
consequently jobs.
Speedy was, incidentally, Lloyd’s family nick-name,
bestowed by his father… irony may have been involved.
This Speedy is mad on Baseball and tries to work as close
as possible to Yankee Stadium or at least near a phone so that he can keep tabs
with his beloved New York Yankees. Serving customers in a down town del, Speedy
keeps his colleagues informed of the state of play by using don-nuts to
indicate the score: it’s an efficient method but only up to a point and as the
Yankees score three Speedy gets spotted and it’s off to his next job.
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| Harry knows the score - one donut to a three pretzel |
But first things first and Speedy has a weekend with his
gal Jane to arrange and off they go to the many joyful rides of Luna Park at
Coney Island. The Playground of the
World is its own star here and actual rides add to the experience whereas other
films may have used corny-Coney substitutes.
Back to life, back to reality and after much error and
trial Speedy ends up as a cab driver but even this proves a discipline too far
as he struggles with contraption and concentration. He’s commandeered by two
cops in a chase and ends up with a speeding ticket for his pains then drives
off again with what he thinks is the officers on board but which only leads to
another ticket. It’s three strikes and out but then he chances upon a school
reception for Babe Ruth who he ends up giving a high-speed lift to Yankee
Stadium: more police trouble.
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| Coney Island baby |
The film shifts gear for a superb scenic climax as Speedy
fights to maintain Pop’s required run of one service every 24 hours. The bad
railway company (not Southern Rail of Govia apparently…) has tried to buy the
old man out but in the face of his intransigence decide that violence and theft
is the only option. At first they try to use gangs of heavies to stop the
service by force but Speedy calls upon the legion of super shop-keepers to use
their old Yankee spirit to fight them using brooms, bins and sheer weight of
numbers. It’s a little reminiscent of the massed brawl in Keaton’s The Cameraman and that’s no bad thing!
Then the baddies steel both horse and tram and as the
clock ticks it looks like the game is up but Speedy finds the clue and then the
tram and proceeds to rip through the streets of Manhattan (mostly!) followed by
the enemy – it’s a break-neck tour of the city as it was and it makes for
fascinating viewing: from Union Square to Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park, Times
Square and Broadway down to Wall Street and across to the Queensboro bridge.
The sequence is up there with massed chase in Cops and one that even incorporates a
genuine crash – you can see the stuntman tumble out of the tram - followed by
an on-the-spot improvisation of a wheel from a man-hole cover. It’s hard to
believe that this was the end for silent Harold Lloyd but he goes out with a
bang and in a manner that proved his ideas were second to no man in terms of
invention and breath-taking verve.
He is ably supported by Ann Christy who replaced the
out-of-contract Jobyna Ralston as well as a host of extras and New York City
herself: seven million extras! The horses are also good – there were at least
three with one being used for ballast in the tram chase.
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| Can you spot the third horse? |
The restored image is very crisp and renders far better
than any version of the film I’ve seen before. The disc also comes with an
impeccable score from Carl Davis which brings symphonic scale to proceedings
and is in great sympathy with the mood and action: like the story it whips
along… speedy indeed.
There’s a host of extras as you’d expect from Criterion…
including Bumping into Broadway a 1919 Lloyd two-reeler and In the Footsteps of Speedy,
a fascinating visit to the locations from Bruce Goldstein which shows that the
film was centred on the West Village as it was in 1917 when the last horse-tram
ran from Sheridan Square. Goldstein reckons Speedy to be the best silent made
of New York and it’s hard to argue.
I’d go on but you probably already have it! If not, it’s
available direct or via Amazon. Hurry up!
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