It’s a real-life mystery that’s gone undetected for 88 years.
Did cops and newspapers cover up a serious accident when a silent-movie stunt involving a horse-drawn trolley went horribly wrong? And why was a second horse traveling inside the trolley?
Film historian Bruce Goldstein uncovered this mystery while preparing a 30-minute documentary for next week’s Criterion Collection release of “Speedy,” famed comedian Harold Lloyd’s last silent — and the only one with extensive location shooting in New York City.
“I’ve watched this movie dozens of times,” says Goldstein, director of repertory programming at Film Forum. “But this is amazing, a great revelation.”
Goldstein and his editor slowed down chase footage that was shot at slower-than-normal speed — so it would appear speeded up when projected at the proper speed — to let Goldstein identify the locations.
It was editor William Hohauser who pointed out something that apparently went unnoticed since the film’s 1928 release: In some shots, there’s a second horse riding inside the trolley.
The trolley crashing into a pillar of the old IRT elevated subway tracks near Bowling Green looks like a daring stunt when projected at the faster speed. But when the same scene is slowed down, it’s clearly an accident.
Lloyd was the top box-office attraction in the United States thanks to classics like “Safety Last!,” for which he convincingly faked climbing a Los Angeles skyscraper and hanging off a clock many stories above the street.
But Lloyd wanted to make a movie set in New York. He decided location shooting in the Big Apple would supplement what he and director Ted Wilde would shoot on a 30-acre replica of Greenwich Village built at his California studio.
Lloyd plays the hapless title character, who helps his girlfriend’s grandfather retain the franchise to the city’s last horse-drawn trolley. (Goldstein’s research shows the last horse-drawn carriage service in Manhattan ended in 1914.)
“Speedy” ends with a lengthy chase through Manhattan streets, with Lloyd’s character being pursued by gangsters. Goldstein theorizes the horse may have been riding in the back for some of the chase to provide ballast for the trolley, which could have tipped over when riding off its tracks.
Turner Classic Movies’ Scott McGee — who is heard on the commentary track of “Speedy” with Goldstein — theorizes there may have been a scene showing the horse loaded onto the trolley to explain its presence. The documentary includes a still photo of Lloyd that Goldstein thinks backs this up. But this explanatory scene may have been cut because the second horse isn’t really visible when the footage is sped up.
One shot reveals the horse was clearly still aboard just before the accident, and Goldstein thinks the horse’s extra weight might have contributed to the accident.
Apparently the filmmakers planned a staged collision between the trolley and a stunt car that’s supposed to be carrying the gangsters, but the stuntman driving the trolley — Lloyd’s double — swerved and hit the steel pillar instead.
“I called the city archives to see if there was any accident report and there isn’t,” he says. “And I checked six or seven newspapers on microfilm. Nothing. They might have covered it up.”
Newspaper reports did note that closing off much of Lower Manhattan for the shoot caused major traffic problems on the day before Labor Day in 1927.
The shoot drew large crowds expecting to see Lloyd. But he never showed up there: He was shooting scenes in Coney Island with director Wilde while a second unit staged and shot parts of the chase sequence.
“I’m absolutely certain that the horses were injured,” says Goldstein. “Lloyd made reference to an accident years later, but the only documentation I could find was a second accident in Greenwich Village, near the end of their shoot in New York.”
The trade journal Variety reported that the Christopher Street-Sheridan Square subway station was seriously damaged in the second accident, though there’s no mention of it in newspapers or city records.
The trolley and the car are seen approaching Sheridan Square as part of the chase sequence — “You can see how packed the streets are with onlookers,” Goldstein says, theorizing the crowds might have contributed to the second accident.
The botched collision between the trolley and the car doesn’t appear in the film. The Bowling Green accident was seamlessly edited with footage filmed in California to make it appear like a deliberate stunt.
“In a way, Lloyd failed at what he wanted to do, creating situations with himself on the streets of Manhattan like he did in Los Angeles,” Goldstein says. “He was just too famous. They did a great job of working around the first accident, but they left town right after the second one.’’
“Speedy,” which includes an appearance by Yankee superstar Babe Ruth as himself, was a huge hit. Ted Wilde received an Oscar nomination for comedy direction, a category dropped after the first year of the Academy Awards.