Street chase with Speedy

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Movie
German title Street chase with Speedy
Original title Speedy
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1928
length 85 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Ted Wilde
script John Gray ,
Lex Neal ,
Howard Emmett Rogers
production Harold Lloyd
for The Harold Lloyd Corporation
music Don Hulette 1974 ,
Carl Davis 1992
camera Walter Lundin
cut Carl Himm
occupation

Street Hunt with Speedy is an American silent film directed by Ted Wilde from 1928. It was the last silent film in which Harold Lloyd appeared.

action

Old Pop Dillon owns the last New York horse tram . WS Wilton, vice president of the NY Inter-City rail company, has long tried to buy his route rights from Pop, but so far without success.

Pop's granddaughter Jane is with Harold "Speedy" Swift. Speedy is crazy about baseball and because of his passion for sports he loses one job after another. Speedy proposes marriage to Jane after he is thrown out of his last job as an ice cream seller and had a great day with Jane on Coney Island . She refuses, as the matter with Pop's horse tram has to be cleared up first. The demands of WS Wilton 10,000  dollars for the web; Speedy secretly increases the sum to $ 70,000 and Wilton indignantly refuses.

Speedy is now starting to work as a taxi driver in order to get money, but has little luck with it. When he is allowed to drive his idol Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees stadium and then secretly watches the game, he finds his boss of all people sitting in front of him and is promptly fired. In a phone booth in the stadium, however, he overhears Wilton planning an intrigue against Pop: He owns the route rights as long as his train uses the rails at least once every 24 hours. A gang is supposed to start a fight in the train the next day, Pop is supposed to be kidnapped and the train is to be hidden. After 24 hours, the track rights would then belong to WS Wilton. Speedy convinces Pop to let him take the train the next day. He informs the old shopkeepers living in the district, some of them now elderly veterans of the civil war , about the planned incident and they agree to rush to Speedy at any time when he says "It smells like rain". The plan succeeds and the train is saved the next day by a mass brawl between the gang and the sprightly veterans.

The triumph is short-lived. Wilton breaks into Pop's garage and has the train hidden at the other end of town overnight. When Speedy discovered the theft, the train had not run for 22 hours. By chance he learns where the hiding place is and can bring the train back onto the street. However, she is not on her tracks yet and time is running out. Speedy races through the streets of New York by train and horse, has to change horses and master other incidents, including an accident and various recent acts of sabotage by Wilson's thugs, and finally, despite the missing chassis, brings the train back to hers shortly before the end of the ultimatum Rails. Wilton now gives up and offers Pop the $ 70,000 purchase price; Speedy manages to drive it up to $ 100,000. With his Jane he now wants to take the horse-drawn tram to Niagara Falls .

production

Street Hunt with Speedy has been filmed in Luna Park on Coney Island , Washington Square Park and Yankee Stadium in New York City , among others . The rapid tram rides were also filmed in the streets of New York City. The spectacular railway accident was unplanned, but was immediately integrated into the plot. The sports idol Babe Ruth , then at the zenith of his fame, played himself in a supporting role.

The film was released in US cinemas on April 7, 1928. The film first ran on German television on July 12, 1981 on ZDF .

criticism

The Lexicon of International Films described street chase with Speedy as "Harold Lloyd's most complex silent film, which gains documentary value through its original recordings of the New York locations."

Awards

Street hunt with Speedy was nominated for an Oscar in the category “ Best Director - Comedy ” in 1929 , but could not prevail against Die Schlachtenbummler .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ James Sanders: Celluloid skyline: New York and the Movies . Knopf, New York 2003, ISBN 0-375-71027-2 , p. 41.
  2. ↑ Klaus Brüne (Ed.): Lexicon of International Films . Volume 3. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1990, p. 1499.