The actor Martin Scorsese called “a marvel”
One can only ever dream of getting the call-up to audition from Martin Scorsese. After all, the legendary New York City-born director is simply a master of filmmaking, and any actor fortunate enough to catch his eye can count themselves lucky, even more so if they actually manage to secure the part.
Starring in a Scorsese movie for the first time has been the making of many an actor throughout the inimitable director’s career, and he’s brought out countless breathtaking performances in the likes of Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas and The Wolf of Wall Street, proving his brilliance time and time again.
As one of the most acclaimed directors of all time, it’s fair to say that Scorsese has an eye for acting talent, and as well as clearly admiring the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, he’s regularly offered his thoughts on the best performers of times gone by, including one of the most iconic silent comics of all time.
“Harold Lloyd was one of the three great silent comics, but for a time, he was eclipsed by both Chaplin and Keaton,” Scorsese once wrote. “I suppose this was because their styles seemed purer and more elemental and because their sensibilities seemed to run deeper—maybe because they aspired to be Everymen.”
Lloyd developed a reputation for his brilliant appearances in comedy of the silent era, becoming one of the most influential silent comedians of all time. He was known for his “thrill sequences” of chase scenes and moments of physical danger, and though he, as Scorsese attests, was somewhat overshadowed by Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, he remains one of the era’s most enduring figures.
Going on to describe Lloyd’s “specifically American comic persona”, Scorsese called him “an embodiment of a certain optimistic, dynamic spirit in the 1920s and ’30s,” adding: “Lloyd’s pictures are electrifying, and they move from place to place and gag to gag with incredible grace and fluidity. And Lloyd himself is a marvel, a young American boy with what used to be called a can-do attitude toward everything, from romance to making money.”
It was 1928’s silent comedy film Speedy that seemed to draw the deepest admiration from Scorsese, directed by Ted Wilde. The director noted, “In Speedy, one of his most famous films, he plays a New York City cab driver who is trying to make a living and to keep his fiancée’s grandfather’s horse-drawn-trolley business alive.”
“Speedy is one of silent cinema’s great portraits of the city of New York, covering most of Manhattan, the South Bronx and Coney Island in furious motion,” Scorsese added. “It is also absolutely hilarious, with one gag coming on top of another in perfectly calibrated timing. This was Lloyd’s last silent picture, and along with The Kid Brother and Safety Last, one of his greatest features.”
