classicsoncall
I've only seen one other work by Harold Lloyd and that was a short. "Safety Last!" proves that he was able to hold his own in company with Chaplin and Keaton, at least in the creativity he demonstrated by providing all the clever sight gags employed in this film. It starts right with the opening scene with that 'noose' ominously swinging in a background that calls to mind a prison scene, but then it dissolves into something entirely different. I also got a kick out of the 'hanging coat' routine by Lloyd and roommate Billy (Bill Strother) when the landlady came calling. With films going all the way back to the Twenties, it's tough not to marvel at what things cost a century ago. How about that overdue rent of fourteen dollars after two weeks! Or The Boy's fifteen bucks for six days pay at the DeVore Department Store. That kind of puts a businessman's lunch for fifty cents into perspective when you think about it.Ordinarily, pratfalls and slapstick don't appeal to me, but when you go this far back in time and see some of the origins of comedy, it can be very entertaining. And when you get to the building climbing scenes and the daring swings twelve floors above the pavement, you begin to admire how film makers pulled off stunts like that without the benefit of CGI. Obviously camera tricks were involved in some manner, but a lot of it makes you wonder 'How did they do that'? Maybe they all used some of that Johnson's Nerve Tonic from the Acme Drug Company.It's kind of uncanny how movie goers still thrill to the antics of someone defying gravity and other various laws of nature like the ones employed by Harold Lloyd in this picture. Just think about the clock swing and the multiple one handed grabs he made on the ledge of the high rise. The movie I saw just before this one was this year's "Tomb Raider" with Alicia Vikander in the title role, and she simulated all those same kinds of thrills in an appropriately more dangerous twenty first century setting. With all the advances in film making and technology, it seems like the folks who make movies today always go back to the industry's roots.
ElMaruecan82
It's only near my mid-twenties that my interest in movies grew and boy, was I busy! It cost me many valuable social assets but that's another story, it was my existential choice to have an immersion into a whole century of artistic creations, which kind of oblige you to get to the basics first. So in the case of silent movies, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton were the must-see at the expenses of the third icon: Harold Lloyd.I never really dedicated much thought or curiosity to Lloyd, I knew his reputation, his looks, the titles he was most celebrated for, and as if it was enough for my cultural knowledge, I knew his most iconic shot, the one where he… well, you know it. To think that one of my favorite movies is "Back to the Future" and it didn't even encourage me to give the film a shot. I saw that "part" with the clock on Youtube and that was enough. When I finished the film yesterday, I felt guilty, how could I ever miss such a gem of a film? I felt less guilty when I read Roger Ebert's review, he saw it for the first time in the early 2000's, almost twice my age, and he calls himself a movie lover. So, there's a real shadow of mystery about "Safety Last!", a classic of the Golden Age, yet relatively unknown.But let's get this straight: it is a Masterpiece. The film displays a comical instinct that no matter what Ebert said, is on the same level than Keaton or Chaplin, especially when it comes to physical comedy. The silent era was a time of performers, they didn't rely on CGI and stuntmen were mostly advisers, it was Chaplin on this rope with the monkeys in "The Circus", Keaton on the cow catcher in "The General" and it was Lloyd dangling and climbing the facade of the building. The film leaves no mystery about his physical abilities, we see him getting on a train on march, jumping from a car, falling repeatedly, the stunt achieved by Lloyd have nothing to envy from his peers, he masters slapstick as well as Chaplin and Keaton.Yet Ebert commented that that the two legends would always have a universal resonance while Lloyd wasn't a natural, he had to work. Well, he did and it worked. He turned his anonymous and bland looking face as an asset, he was an every-man, too boyish to be a leading figure, too bland to be funny without trying. That was the point: he had to try and after many attempts, he finally found his 'toothbrush mustache': glasses and a straw hat. He created an instantly likable character, or if not likable, one whom the audience could project empathy and positive feelings on. He would be named 'The Boy' or 'Harold Lloyd'. In "Safety Last!" he's a man from a small town who goes to the city and works as a salesclerk in De Vore Department Store.Not the most colorful job, he's no gold miner, no tramp, no train driver but even within the limited range of this situation, Lloyd finds a way to combine slapstick and physical feats: just to avoid another reprimand from his self-important floor-walker, he's got ten minutes to get to his place and clock in. Then the film provides a fantastic race against time that works like a foretaste to the climactic building-climbing. The power of Lloyd is to make a film where every plot point is either an excuse for a gag or a stunt, sometimes both. It's like a situation comedy with a great timing based on misunderstanding and lies. He's not in a bad situation but he makes his girlfriend believe he has some high rank, and naturally, she comes by to check and the whole second act consists on pretending to be the boss and ditching the encounters that might betray his act. It all leads up the climax, that climbing of the 12-store-building, I often wondered what pushed this man to be in that situation, always assuming that he actually got off from a window. Not only he climbed the whole building store by store but each store offers a specific obstacle, he's showered by peanuts attracting pigeons, get a mouse in his pants, catching a rope that is not even tied and so on and so forth, it's an exhaustive experience, one we're forced to see but can't because we don't have the control and he doesn't even seem to have the control himself. Even when he manages to get on the top, a weather vane hits him in the head and he starts moving like Goofy in "Clock Cleaners", I wouldn't be surprised if the film served like an inspiration, it is the pioneer of all these gravity-defying stunts actually.For the trivia, "Safety Last!" was the only comedy to be listed in the American Film Institute's Top 100 Thrills, and it wasn't even in the Top 100 comedies, as shocking as it is (the list included many debatable comedies) it's like the chief emotion of the film is thrills and it is a credit to Harold Lloyd to have made a film capable to grab genuine laughs and where you would grave someone's arm, it is fun and agonizing in the same time. Still, the thrills involved in the film are only the tip of an iceberg. "Safety Last!" is fun before being a heart-pounding experience, and that's saying a lot. Buster Keaton's "General" didn't make in the Thrills but in the Laughs list, and that's how "Safety Last!" works, like a "General" but with a vertical twist and with one of the most iconic images of the silent era.That the AFI would overlook the comedy (it should have, if only for that hilarious opening gag), that Ebert didn't see it until the 2000's, that I only discovered yesterday are just total mysteries.
CinemaClown
I've seen fair amount of silent comedies starring Charlie Chaplin which any given day will take the top three spots on my favourite silent films & I've seen a handful of Buster Keaton's works as well which are full of technical innovations & exquisite use of dry humour which I admire very much. However, Safety Last is my first stint with features starring Harold Lloyd & I'm kind of kicking myself right now for not having checked out more of his films even when he has been the most prolific of these three iconic figures of cinema.Safety Last tells the story of a young man who is moving to the big city to find success & promises to send for his girlfriend once he is financially stable so that they can get married. But life in the big town is difficult & our boy is feeling the heat until he overhears his boss planning to give $1000 to anyone who can come up with an idea that would bring a crowd in front of their store. Promising to split the reward in half, he asks his roommate to climb to the top of his store building in a publicity stunt but a series of circumstances ultimately force him to make the climb himself.Wonderfully directed, cleverly scripted, crisply photographed, tightly edited & nicely scored, the film also boasts some truly memorable moments of the silent film era & is hilarious from start to finish. Harold Lloyd may not have the unparalleled charisma of Chaplin or the deadpan expressions of Keaton but he manages to make his character work solely on his acting skills & delivers an outstanding performance. On an overall scale, Safety Last is an ingeniously crafted, influential, unforgettable & significant masterpiece of its time that hasn't aged a day and I just can't wait to check out more of Lloyd's works. Highly recommended.
cricket crockett
" . . . soon as I ditch this cop." So yells Bill Strother (playing "The Pal") to Harold Lloyd (in the role of "The Boy") amid the latter's precarious exploration of the OUTSIDE facade of a Los Angeles high-rise during a publicity stunt gone awry. At the height of the "Age of Ballyhoo," during which one could become famous by merely sitting atop a flagpole for a few weeks, a chain of events have forced The Boy to promote his experienced wall-climbing friend in a PR event which will set him up for marriage to "The Girl" (Lloyd's eventual real-life wife, Mildred Davis). The mishaps which have endangered The Boy's future naturally continue, compelling him to make his own dare-devil debut before a throng of thousands. At a time when Mount Everest was as yet unconquered, it certainly is refreshing to see a man "win" a woman through what is arguably a skill and certainly a brave act (as opposed to what Dustin Hoffman's character does at the end of THE GRADUATE, cravenly "stealing" another man's bride from the altar).
