Speedy (1928)

Dreamer Harold ‘Speedy’ Swift (Harold Lloyd) works in a malt shop, visits Coney Island, becomes a taxi driver, meets Babe Ruth, and saves his girl’s grandfather’s horse-drawn trolley business.

The trolley story line, ostensibly the film’s premise, doesn’t show up until about the half way point. Like most of his films, the rest is an excuse for Lloyd to perform his comedic bits and pad it out to 85 minutes. His propensity to lose his job facilitates his gags and explains his free time. The Coney Island section has a number of clever bits. At one point he gives his image in a fun mirror the middle finger. Apparently that was allowed back then.

Thugs want Grandpa’s trolley route and modernize it with electricity. They can do this if Grandpa fails to run his route. It’d be an awful shame if something unfortunate happened. The Babe is late for a game so it’s taxi driver Speedy to the rescue. I understand that Lou Gehrig can be seen in a crowd at some point, but I missed him.

Speedy is an effective, if disjointed, silent comedy. I don’t find Harold Lloyd as inventive as Buster Keaton nor as emotionally impactful as Charlie Chaplin, but he knew how to please an audience. AMRU 3.5.

Safety Last! (1923)

A young man (Harold Lloyd) goes to the big city to become successful enough to marry his sweetheart. Things don't go as planned, but he tries to keep up appearances. Then become complicated when sweetheart travels to the city to visits him at work. So, he climbs the building to make some extra cash. You know the scene where he hangs from a clock face. It's real famous.

As a kid I was told Lloyd actually performed these stunts on the building, with eight fingers (two were blown off a few years earlier), without a stuntman. Well, turns out, not so much. A stunt man was used, and Lloyd wasn't nearly as far off the ground as it seemed. The bricks were modified to give him a solid grip. The stunt man didn't spill the beans until Lloyd died. Also, he didn't want to diminish the real danger of the stunts.

Lloyd would marry his almost 22 year old co-star two months before the film's April fools day release. He discouraged her from continuing her career shortly thereafter.

Safety Last! has some fairly clever visual gags and the wall climbing in the third act holds your interest, however the film is sometimes tedious despite the 70 minute run time. This is one of about a billion silent comedies Hal Roach has his name on. He is credited as "Presenter" and writer, and uncredited as producer.

Paper-thin story, tired comedy mixed in with some better bits, capped off by cool stunts in the third act, and you have a very watchable film. AMRU 3.

The Kid Brother (1927)

Harold Hickory (Harold Lloyd) is the youngest son of the Hickory clan, the most influential family in Hickoryville. They don't include him in their manly dealings and he has to prove himself to them and this girl ... wait, are all silent comedies the same?

Pretty much. OSHA unapproved stunts, "believing in yourself" mantra, and pancake makeup. Only difference between this and a Buster Keaton film is Lloyd's glasses and expressive face. The details of the story don't matter. We root for Harold and laugh at some of the bits. And some of the bits are pretty funny.

Seven of Lloyd's eighteen feature films were talkies. This was his second to last (or penultimate in fancy-talk) silent picture. He did a million shorts. Usually listed third behind Chaplin and Keaton for silent comedians, I was unaware he did as many features as he did.

Heavier on story and lighter on stunts as his other films (or so I am told), this was Lloyd's personal favorite. I mentioned in my last post about Clark Kent being modeled after Cary Grant, but apparently the comic modeled him directly on Lloyd's Glasses character.

Interesting if unoriginal story, funny bits, and well filmed, if a bit tedious, Lloyd is second to Keaton for silent comedians as far as I am concerned. For now, at least. AMRU 3. Way past time I got onto horror, don't you think?

"I do not believe the public will want spoken comedy. Motion pictures and the spoken arts are two distinct arts."