Silent Film Screening with Live Piano Accompaniment

A Classic Silent Comedy with Live Piano Accompaniment

Sunday, April 15 at 2 p.m.-- SPEEDY (1928) Starring Harold Lloyd and Ann Christy; Not Rated; 85 minutes.

Harold Lloyd’s classic silent comedy Speedy will be presented with a live piano score by noted film scholar and accompanist John Mucci.

Harold Lloyd plays Speedy, an enthusiastic, inventive young man who loves Jane, played by Ann Christy. He’s perpetually unemployed because of his passion for baseball, and Jane’s father, who owns the last horse-drawn trolley in New York City, is being threatened by a scheming railway magnate. When Speedy loses his job as a soda jerk, he decides to spend the day with his girlfriend at Luna Park on Coney Island.

Shot almost entirely in New York, including Coney Island’s Luna Park, the subway, Wall Street, Times Square, Columbus Circle, and Yankee Stadium, the film is a testament to the place and people of the era.

For more information, please watch the film's introduction.

John Mucci has been accompanying silent films since 1972, and has been acclaimed as “bringing the silents back to life” and providing “hair-raising experiences” during the many chase scenes for delighted audiences in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New York, and Arizona.

This program is part of our One Book, One Community series. The book selected for the town-wide read is 97 Orchard by Jane Ziegelman. The book selected for young readers is The Inquisitor’s Apprentice by Chris Moriarty. Each book is set around the turn of the twentieth century in New York City and centers on the immigrant experience in a unique place and time in history.

Additional parking for evening and weekend Library programs available on Thorndal Circle (behind Nielsen's).