Speedy

Harold Lloyd's last Silent effort is also one of his best vehicles: as ever, production values transcend its simple, comedic nature - the film is particularly relevant as a time-capsule for its view of 1920s New York City - while the narrative itself is filled with enough engaging subplots to please just about everybody - Harold's failure to keep a job for long (we see him, hilariously, as a soda-jerk and a cab driver), his passion for baseball (replacing the game of football celebrated in Lloyd's earlier THE FRESHMAN [1925] and even featuring a cameo by one of its legendary exponents, Babe Ruth, as himself), not to mention an outing with his girl (Ann Christy - okay, if not quite in the same league as regulars Bebe Daniels, Mildred Davis and Jobyna Ralston) at Coney Island.

The main plot, however, concerns a gang of big-city crooks intent on buying out Christy's grandfather (who owns the last operating horse-drawn cart in town); this eventually results in two wonderful set-pieces: the lengthy brawl between the villains and the team Lloyd rallies to resist them, a bunch of mangled but enthusiastic Civil War veterans, and the exhilarating final chase in which Harold ultimately makes good by bringing in the horse-cart on time against all odds - a tour-de-force in the style of Lloyd's climaxes for both GIRL SHY (1924) and FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE (1926). Incidentally, the ousting of an old-fashioned means of transport was also the theme of one of Ealing Studios' classic British comedies, THE TITFIELD THUNDERBOLT (1953), not to mention one of Luis Bunuel's Mexican films, ILLUSION TRAVELS BY STREETCAR (1954).

Tragically, director Ted Wilde - who had also guided Lloyd through his finest movie ever, THE KID BROTHER (1927) - died of a stroke at the young age of 36 the year after he made SPEEDY but not before receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Direction of a Comedy Picture, the only time an award of this sort was handed out by the Academy.