Speedy with Now or Never

Harold Lloyd ranks alongside Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton as slapstick cinema's preeminent funnymen. His unwavering confidence and optimism — combined with his remarkable speed, agility and impeccable comic timing — made him one of the most beloved figures of the silent era.

Now or Never (1921) is a short comedy about a young man (Harold Llyod) unexpectedly assigned to babysit his nanny girlfriend's (Mildred Davis) young charge, whom she has brought along without her employer's permission, aboard a moving train. Hijinks ensue when the couple discovers that the young girl's father who is unexpectedly a passenger on the same train and they attempt to evade both him and the train porter

Speedy (1928) was the last silent feature to star Harold Lloyd — and one of his very best. The slapstick legend reprises his “Glasses Character,” this time as a good-natured but scatterbrained New Yorker who can’t keep a job. He finally finds his true calling when he becomes determined to help save the city’s last horse-drawn streetcar, which is operated by his sweetheart’s crusty grandfather. From its joyous visit to Coney Island to its incredible Babe Ruth cameo to comically cramped subway ride, Speedy is an out-of-control love letter to New York that will have you grinning from ear to ear.

These two comedies will be preceded by the early short film Interior NY Subway, 14th Street To 42nd Street (1905), which documents the New York City subway only seven months after it opened. This deceptively simple film also harnesses the new technology it seeks to capture. According to historian Scott Simmon, it required three trains to create: "the one we watch, the one carrying the camera, and a third (glimpsed on the parallel track) to carry the bank of lights."

Featuring: 

Interior NY Subway, 14th Street To 42nd Street 
(1905, dir. American Mutoscope & Biograph Co and G.W. Bitzer, 5 min.) 
Now or Never 
(1921, dir. Hal Roach and Fred Newmeyer, 40 min).
Speedy 
(1929, dir. Ted Wilde, 84 min.)

Cosponsored by the Wharton Studio Museum and Cinemapolis as part of Silent Movie Month in Ithaca.

Part of "Off the Rails! Trains in Silent Cinema." Courtesy of Janus Films, Kino Lorber, and Light Cone.