Speedy

Lloyd's last silent picture is a lazy affair, of interest chiefly, now at the end of the century, for its affectionate and detailed portrait of New York City in the 1920s. The story concerns an old timer who drives the city's last horse drawn tram along a certain route which he won't give up to satisfy some ruffianly railroad developers. Harold 'Speedy' Swift (Lloyd), who works as a soda jerk and is baseball mad (cue Babe Ruth cameo), is in love with the old man's daughter, and shows her a good time (interminably) on Coney Island. There are one or two elegant sight gags (a dollar bill attached to a piece of cotton obtains the love birds a seat on a trolley), but the climactic rescue of the clanky hijacked tram lacks the adrenalin rush of an authentic Lloyd chase sequence.