"Welcome Danger" -- Two versions, one with sound, one without.

The 1928 comedy classic "Speedy" (famous scene shown below)is officially known as clown genius Harold Lloyd's last silent film. But was it really?

His 1929 comedy "Welcome Danger" (above) began filming as a silent, but Lloyd realized during production that sound wasn't just a fad, it was more along the lines of a cinematic revolution. So he revamped the story, changed casts and directors, and shot two versions.

Theaters that weren't yet equipped for sound saw the silent version. But the "talkie" version became one of Lloyd's highest-grossing films because audiences were eager to hear the popular silent comedian talk for the first time. Over the decades that followed, the silent version of "Welcome Danger" became a forgotten curio until it was restored a few years ago by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Both versions of the comedy screen for the first time back-to-back tonight at the Billy Wilder Theater.

Though "Welcome Danger" in both forms is rather minor Lloyd, the silent version actually works far better than the talkie.

"Lloyd has an annoying quality about him in the sound version -- he is not the Harold we know," says Jere Guldin, film preservationist for the UCLA archive. Guldin preserved the silent version, which played recently at the UCLA preservation festival. UCLA's Robert Gitt had restored the talkie several years earlier.

"Welcome Danger" finds Lloyd playing the meek botanist son of a legendary former San Francisco police chief who returns to the City by the Bay and ends up uncovering a dope ring in Chinatown.

By Susan King, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer