{ "id": "eprp3g8j0d", "slug": "speedy-1928-film", "title": "Speedy (1928 film)", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent", "label": "Early and silent cinema", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-features", "label": "Silent feature films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-features" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-features.yr-1927-2012", "label": "Released 1927 to 2012", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-features.yr-1927-2012" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-features", "label": "United States · 1800 to 1945: Silent feature films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-features", "path": [ { "id": "geo.us", "label": "United States", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800", "label": "United States · 1800 to 1945", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent", "label": "Early and silent cinema", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-features", "label": "Silent feature films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-features" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Speedy (1928) is Harold Lloyd's final silent feature, a Ted Wilde comedy in which the scatterbrained New Yorker Speedy Swift saves the city's last horse-drawn streetcar, with a Babe Ruth cameo and extensive New York location shooting.", "snippet": "Speedy (1928) is Harold Lloyd's final silent feature, a Ted Wilde comedy in which the scatterbrained New Yorker Speedy Swift saves the city's last horse-drawn streetcar, with a Babe Ruth cameo and extensive New York location shooting.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-features.yr-1927-2012", "markdown": "# Speedy (1928 film)\n\n**Speedy** is a 1928 American silent comedy directed by Ted Wilde and starring [Harold Lloyd](https://www.edgepedia.org/harold-lloyd) in his final silent feature. Lloyd plays Harold \"Speedy\" Swift, a good-natured but scatterbrained New Yorker who cannot hold a job and finds his calling helping to save the city's last horse-drawn streetcar, operated by his sweetheart's grandfather.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12344-SPEEDY) • [2](https://www.criterion.com/films/28497-speedy) The film was produced by the Harold Lloyd Corporation, distributed by [Paramount Pictures](https://www.edgepedia.org/paramount-pictures), and released on 7 April 1928.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12344-SPEEDY) • [3](https://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/S/Speedy1928.html)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Release | 7 April 1928, New York opening; 8 reels, 7,690 feet, black-and-white silent, 1.33:1[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12344-SPEEDY) • [3](https://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/S/Speedy1928.html) |\n| Director / producer | Ted Wilde; produced by Harold Lloyd for the Harold Lloyd Corporation[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12344-SPEEDY) |\n| Cast | Harold Lloyd (Harold \"Speedy\" Swift), Ann Christy (Jane Dillon), Bert Woodruff (Pop Dillon), Babe Ruth (himself), Byron Douglas (W. S. Wilton), Brooks Benedict (Steve Carter)[2](https://www.criterion.com/films/28497-speedy) |\n| Significance | Lloyd's last silent film and the only Harold Lloyd film to receive an Academy Award nomination[2](https://www.criterion.com/films/28497-speedy) • [4](https://silentfilm.org/speedy/) |\n| Recognition | Ted Wilde received a certificate of honorable mention in Directing (Comedy Picture) at the first Academy Awards, held in 1930[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12344-SPEEDY) |\n| Box office | Grosses of more than $2 million in the United States and abroad[5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1206/speedy) |\n| Preservation | A 35mm print exists at the UCLA Film & Television Archive; the film is in the US public domain, and Criterion issued a 4K restoration on Blu-ray (Spine #788)[3](https://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/S/Speedy1928.html) • [2](https://www.criterion.com/films/28497-speedy) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot\n\nPop Dillon (Bert Woodruff) owns the last remaining horse-drawn streetcar in New York and is fighting off attempts by the mogul W. S. Wilton (Byron Douglas) to buy him out. Pop lives with his devoted granddaughter Jane (Ann Christy), who is in love with Harold \"Speedy\" Swift. Pop likes Harold but is concerned by the young man's inability to hold a job, especially during baseball season; Harold loses a position as a soda jerk (attendant making sodas at a drugstore fountain) when he is distracted by the score of a Yankees game while running an errand for his boss.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12344-SPEEDY)\n\nSpeedy's next job as a taxicab driver ends disastrously, but not before he takes [Babe Ruth](https://www.edgepedia.org/babe-ruth), playing himself, on a wild ride to [Yankee Stadium](https://www.edgepedia.org/yankee-stadium), after which Speedy settles into the stands to watch his famous fare play.[6](https://movingimagesource.us/articles/slapstick-on-the-streets-20111013) • [5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1206/speedy) After Pop turns down their cheap bid, the developers take his trolley, aware that the franchise lapses unless it operates at least once within every 24-hour period. After getting the trolley back, Harold races madly across town and reaches the finish just in time to keep the franchise alive; Pop then unloads it on the buyers for a large price.[6](https://movingimagesource.us/articles/slapstick-on-the-streets-20111013)\n\n## Production and New York locations\n\nAccording to a production chart in the 7 January 1928 *Exhibitors Herald and Moving Picture World*, work began on 30 July 1927, with much of the New York footage shot in October and November 1927.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12344-SPEEDY) Lloyd and his company arrived in New York in mid-August 1927 for an intended four-week shoot and ended up filming for 10 weeks.[6](https://movingimagesource.us/articles/slapstick-on-the-streets-20111013) A contemporary account in *The New Yorker* by [James Thurber](https://www.edgepedia.org/james-thurber) and Woodburn reported that the location work took twelve weeks when it should have taken a third as long, with traffic, children, and bad luck causing delays; cameras were hidden in piano boxes and a laundry wagon, and Lloyd hid in doorways until a dropped handkerchief signaled that the cameras were ready.[7](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1928/05/05/shooting-speedy)\n\n**Locations.** The film is one of the few pre-talkie movies filmed so extensively on location in New York. Notable sites included Yankee Stadium, Pennsylvania Station, Coney Island's Luna Park, the [Queensboro Bridge](https://www.edgepedia.org/queensboro-bridge), Columbus Circle, Wall Street, Times Square, and the [Brooklyn Bridge](https://www.edgepedia.org/brooklyn-bridge).[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12344-SPEEDY) • [5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1206/speedy) • [8](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019412/locations/?item=lc2980775) The timing was deliberate in effect if not in plan: the film depicts the summer of 1927, when Babe Ruth hit his record-setting 60th home run on 30 September and the Yankees swept the [World Series](https://www.edgepedia.org/world-series).[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12344-SPEEDY) • [6](https://movingimagesource.us/articles/slapstick-on-the-streets-20111013) In one scene, Yankees star Lou Gehrig can be seen very briefly through the taxicab window as Ruth exits the cab at Yankee Stadium.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12344-SPEEDY)\n\nNot everything was shot in New York. Other exteriors were filmed at Lloyd's lot on Santa Monica Boulevard in [Westwood, Los Angeles](https://www.edgepedia.org/westwood-los-angeles), and most scenes of Harold interacting with park patrons and food vendors were filmed near Hollywood, at the Abbot Kinney Pier in Venice, California, with the interior fun house scenes shot at the Ocean Park Fun Palace.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12344-SPEEDY) • [6](https://movingimagesource.us/articles/slapstick-on-the-streets-20111013)\n\n**The Ruth cameo.** Babe Ruth appears in one scene and was paid for his acting, though the producers would say only that it was a \"nominal sum.\"[7](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1928/05/05/shooting-speedy) The timing of the shoot, just after his 60-home-run season, made Ruth the most famous sports figure in America.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12344-SPEEDY)\n\n**An accident becomes a gag.** During filming of the climactic race, the horsecar, driven at full speed down Third Avenue, struck the post of an elevated subway track, throwing the stunt driver from the cab. Neither the driver nor the horses were injured, and the footage was so good that Lloyd reworked it into the film; after the crash, Harold commandeers a manhole cover to replace the car's broken wheel.[4](https://silentfilm.org/speedy/) A separate crash during filming at the Brooklyn Bridge, in which the trolley hit the steel pillars adjoining the bridge, was also captured by the camera and left in the movie with little editing.[5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1206/speedy)\n\n## Reception and legacy\n\nThe film premiered in New York City, a first for a Lloyd feature, to critical applause and public popularity. Lloyd found only three previews necessary before he considered the film finished, fewer than the five or six his releases typically went through. Although it earned slightly less at the box office than his previous film, *[The Kid Brother](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-kid-brother)* (1927), it holds the distinction of being the only Harold Lloyd film to receive an Academy Award nomination.[4](https://silentfilm.org/speedy/) The relocation of Lloyd and his crew of 35 from Hollywood to Manhattan made it a very expensive movie for its day, costing a quarter of a million dollars more than *The Kid Brother*.[5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1206/speedy)\n\nThe title came from Lloyd's own nickname, bestowed by his father and previously used in *[The Freshman](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-freshman-1925-film)* (1925), where his character says, \"Step right up and call me Speedy!\"[5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1206/speedy) Some sources reported that *Speedy* marked the film debut of Ann Christy, but she had already appeared in several two-reel shorts and as a bit player in features such as the 1927 Columbia release *The Kid Sister*.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12344-SPEEDY)\n\nThe film's location work has given it a second life as a record of the city. Critics describe it as a cinematic time capsule of New York in 1927 and 1928, showing landmarks including [Times Square](https://www.edgepedia.org/times-square), Wall Street, the Brooklyn Bridge, Coney Island, and Yankee Stadium, many of them since altered or demolished.[9](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/speedy) • [10](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-nov-15-wk-chat15-story.html) In 2015 the Criterion Collection released a new 4K digital restoration from elements preserved by the UCLA Film & Television Archive, with a 1992 Carl Davis score and supplementary material including Bruce Goldstein's documentary *In the Footsteps of \"Speedy\"* about the New York shoot.[2](https://www.criterion.com/films/28497-speedy) The film entered the US public domain, having been first published in 1928.[3](https://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/S/Speedy1928.html) • [11](https://www.thefilmexaminer.com/films/speedy-1928)\n\n## References\n\n1. [Speedy (1928), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12344-SPEEDY)\n2. [Speedy, The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/films/28497-speedy)\n3. [Speedy (1928), Progressive Silent Film List, Silent Era](https://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/S/Speedy1928.html)\n4. [Speedy, San Francisco Silent Film Festival](https://silentfilm.org/speedy/)\n5. [Speedy by Roger Fristoe, Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1206/speedy)\n6. [Slapstick on the Streets: The New York City locations of Harold Lloyd's Speedy, by John Bengtson, Moving Image Source](https://movingimagesource.us/articles/slapstick-on-the-streets-20111013)\n7. [Shooting \"Speedy,\" by James Thurber and Woodburn, The New Yorker, May 5, 1928](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1928/05/05/shooting-speedy)\n8. [Speedy (1928) filming locations, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019412/locations/?item=lc2980775)\n9. [Speedy, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/speedy)\n10. [An Old N.Y. Film Helps City Today, by Susan King, Los Angeles Times, November 15, 2001](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-nov-15-wk-chat15-story.html)\n11. [Speedy (1928), The Film Examiner](https://www.thefilmexaminer.com/films/speedy-1928)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Early and silent cinema › Silent feature films › Released 1927 to 2012*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/speedy-1928-film", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/speedy-1928-film.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Speedy (1928 film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/speedy-1928-film. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Speedy (1928 film)](https://www.edgepedia.org/speedy-1928-film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/speedy-1928-film](https://www.edgepedia.org/speedy-1928-film). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Speedy (1928 film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/speedy-1928-film. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Speedy is Harold Lloyd's final silent feature, a Ted Wilde comedy in which the scatterbrained New Yorker Speedy Swift saves the city's last horse-drawn streetcar, with a Babe Ruth cameo and extensive New York location shooting." }