Harold Lloyd stars as a Yankee fan who can’t seem to hold a
job. His girlfriend’s grandfather, “Pop”
(Bert Woodruff) owns the last horse-drawn trolley in New York. When he refuses to sell his company to a big
competitor, they plan to sabotage his trolley.
It’s then up to Lloyd to save the trolley and the family business.
This was Lloyd’s last silent film, and while some vignettes
work better than others, it’s still a fine example of what Lloyd can do. The scenes of Lloyd taking his best gal to Coney
Island are okay, but I liked the scene where they play house inside of a moving
truck more. I also got a few laughs from
the scene where Lloyd uses his baseball skills to make an orange soda and
creates his own scoreboard using donuts and pretzels.
The big scene though revolves around Lloyd’s woes as a taxi
driver. The highlight comes when he has
to get Babe Ruth (playing himself) to Yankee Stadium in a hurry. The chase sequence in the finale where he
frantically drives his horse-drawn trolley through the jam-packed streets of
New York is even more elaborate and is really something to see.
Part of the charm of Speedy is you get to see how things
were back in the old days. For example,
you couldn’t check the baseball scores on your phone at work. Well, you could, but you had to call Yankee Stadium
for updates.
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