I am working on a project about Harold Lloyd's use of trolleys in silent films for our Museum.



What arrangements did Lloyd (and other stars) have with Los Angeles Railway for filming these antics? Were scenes filmed during regular traffic periods or at off-peak times?

Thanks.

Wesley

Image from wbur.org

It happens that I am a huge Harold Lloyd fan (and of silent cinema in general) and can help you with your questions. Annette D'Agostino Lloyd, Harold Lloyd's biographer, could probably help answer your question. She maintains an outstanding website for Harold Lloyd fans where you can post questions on a message board much like rypn.org. Lloyd's studio papers, keybooks, correspondence, publicity stills and negatives are preserved at the Library of the Motion Picture Arts & Sciences in Beverly Hills, California, and they are still being processed; I would image his papers would shed light on the various streetcar lines used in his films.

If I recall correctly, I read that he used the Pacific Electric's trolleys in the vicinity of Culver City near the Hal Roach Studios. Lloyd also used the Sante Fe in For Heaven's Sake, in which a Santa Fe 4-6-2 No. 1339 runs into his brand new 1926 Ford, and even attempts to dodge between a freight and passenger train at a crossing aboard a runaway tour bus in a later sequence in the same film. Also don't miss Girl Shy when he rides aboard an SP intercity train with leading lady Jobyna Ralston and her dog escapes onboard, including a hilarious scene in which Lloyd tangles with the conductor.

I wonder if the same PE streetcars used in Lloyd's films are preserved at Ornage Empire? Weren't these the cars everybody called "red cars"?

K.R. Bell