Speedy

When Pop first stops the horse car to let a passenger off, the window to his right is up.

When he resumes his route, the window glass is suddenly gone.

In the scene at Coney Island where Speedy thinks the shadows from a spotted umbrella are marks on his suit, the umbrella spots don't line up with the spots on the suit, which are obviously from a filter above and to the left of Harold Lloyd.

And when he pushes the umbrella out of the light, the motion of the spots again doesn't match.

Today I watched a wonderful restoration of the Harold Lloyd gem "Speedy". Released nearly 90 years ago, this silent film demonstrates the power of great story telling and the genius of Harold Lloyd.

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The National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra, Australia, has a beautiful clean print of this very funny classic. At this week's showing, there was accompaniment on a grand piano by Mauro Columbis, who recently did such a superb job in the dark with DeMille's The Godless Girl.

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.

Really give this movie a shot. Its a classic that can be watched 100 years later.

Monday April 11, 7pm, The Paramount, Seattle "New York, where everybody is in such a hurry that they take Saturday's bath on Friday so they can do Monday's washing on Sunday." A soda jerk takes his girl on a date, then saves her granddad's horse-trolley from crooked businessmen.

The gags are amusing, not laugh out loud funny, but Harold Lloyd really transports us to New York circa 1928 with this film, making it an entertaining time capsule of sorts. The many street scenes are marvelous, as is the trip to Coney Island, where we see Lloyd and Ann Christy scarfing down food, going on rides, and trying out the carnival games.

For Harold Lloyd's final silent film he chose to shoot most of it in New York City, no doubt using the facilities of Paramount's Astoria Studios as Paramount did release this film that Lloyd himself produced. And now with the demolition of the old Yankee Stadium, there is precious little left from that time in 1928 when Speedy was shot and released to the movie-going public.

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.