Harold Lloyd was the bespectacled boy next door whose road to success was often paved with perilous detours and whose fast-paced comedies made him the most-popular movie star of Hollywood’s silent film era.
Town Hall Theatre, 40 Main St. in Wilton will present Lloyd’s 1928 film “Speedy” Sunday, May 28, at 2 p.m., with live music by silent film accompanist Jeff Rapsis.
“Speedy,” shot on location in New York City, is the last installment in the Town Hall Theatre’s ongoing “Silent New York” series. Admission is free, but a donation of $10 per person is suggested to help defray expenses.
“Speedy,” Lloyd’s final silent feature before the transition to talkies, finds him as a baseball-crazed youth who must rescue the city’s last horse-drawn streetcar from gangsters bent on running it out of business.
The film offers glimpses of the city at the end of the 1920s, including footage of Coney Island and the original Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. The latter scenes include an extended appearance by Babe Ruth, then at the height of his career during the team’s storied 1927 season.
“In ‘Speedy,’ New York City is practically a part of the cast,” Rapsis stated. “In filming it on location, Lloyd knew scenes of New York would give the picture added interest to audiences across the nation and around the world. But what he didn’t anticipate was that today, the location shots now provide a fascinating record of how life was lived in the Big Apple in the 1920s.”
For information, call 603-654-3456.