Speedy (1928)
What:
Speedy (1928)
When:
June 10 - 13
Where:
First Look at ACMI
Win:
We have 5 dbl passes to the Thursday screening (July 10, 7pm) to give away. To enter, email win@threethousand.com.au with the subject line 'New York I love you but you're bringing me down'
If you need something to wash the Big Apple clean after its tawdry affair with Sex and The City, ACMI has a treat this weekend: 1928's Speedy, the final silent film of Harold Lloyd, famously called "one of the enduring valentines to New York from Hollywood."
This isn't just a love letter - it's an instruction manual. (Where else will you learn how to use a dollar bill on a string to get yourself a seat on public transport?) Like all slapstick heroes, Lloyd's Speedy oscillates between inventive genius and clueless buffoon, and his urban tactics play like a prototype of John McClane's in Die Hard 3.
Speedy won't make your jaw drop like the elaborately conceptual gags of Buster Keaton will. It feels more contemporary even as it works as a time machine. The charming indulgent digression to Coney Island will make you wonder how anyone survived the insanely dangerous rides on display.
When Speedy - playing house with a stranger's furniture, in the back of a moving van that's actually moving - looks out at the streetlights of 1920s New York, it's magic.
Format: Cinema
Mood: Nostalgic
Keywords: ACMI
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