One of the best contructed full-length comedies of the twenties. Harold Lloyd was not as outrageously inventive as Chaplin, nor as sentimental. His style was a kind of minimalist one, taking a simple idea -- say, being a hasseled salesman in a clothing store and needing desperately to become a success -- and building on that small situation until, by the hilarious climax, he finds himself swinging from the bent minute hand of an oversized clock on the side of a building many stories above the street. (Human flies were popular around this time, as were flagpole sitters and goldfish eaters.) When a mouse crawls up the leg of his trousers, not only does Loyd go through a sort of break dance trying to get rid of it but when he finally does shake it out, the mouse falls down the wall of the building and in the process removes a toupee from a spectator peering out of a lower window. All of this without matte work. Not to say that the earlier scenes in the store aren't extremely amusing, because they are. Loyd had a very mobile face and like most silent comedians a deft physical manner. He makes a splendidly fawning salesman. A very funny movie indeed, and thrilling as well. Any five minutes of the climax, taken at random, makes one dizzier than whole sections of Clint Eastwood or Sylvester Stallone hanging around the Eiger or elsewhere in the Alps. Somehow, Loyd managed to make a self-deprecatory joke out of his athletic skill, while nowadays stars use what amount of it they have as an opportunity to show off their bravery and, when possible, their bulging muscles. Let's hear it for the silents.
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rmax30482325 June 2002
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claudio_carvalho25 March 2012In 1922, the country boy Harold says goodbye to his mother and his girlfriend Mildred in the train station and leaves Great Bend expecting to be successful in the big city. Harold promises to Mildred to get married with her as soon as he "make good".
Harold shares a room with his friend "Limpy" Bill and he finally gets a job as salesman in the De Vore Department Store. However, he pawns Bill's phonograph, buys a lavaliere and writes to Mildred telling that he is a manager of De Vore.
One day, Harold sees an old friend from Great Bend that is a policeman and when he meets his friend Bill, he asks Bill to push the policeman over him and make him fall down. However Bill pushes the wrong policeman that chases him, but he escapes climbing up a building.
Out of the blue, Mildred is convinced by her mother to visit Harold without previous notice and he pretends to be the manager of De Vore. When Harold overhears the general manager telling that he would give one thousand dollars to to anyone that could promote De Vore attracting people to the department store, he offers five hundred dollars to Bill to climb up the Bolton Building. However things go wrong when the angry policeman decides to check whether the mystery man that will climb up the building is the one who pushed him over on the floor.
"Safety Last!" is one of the funniest comedies ever and the joke begins with the title that plays with the expression Safety First! Another day I saw "Hugo" and Martin Scorcese pays a tribute to "Safety Last!" showing the scene of Harold Lloyd hanging from the Bolton Building clock and I have decided to see this film again.
If Harold Lloyd himself or a stuntman climbed the building, it does not matter. The breathless scene is among the most known in the cinema history and "Safety Last!" is a must-see film for any generation. My vote is nine.
Title (Brazil): "O Homem Mosca" ("The Fly Man") -
gbrumburgh8 June 2001Wiry, athletic, bespectacled Harold Lloyd may rank third after Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton in "silent age" comedy polls, but when it comes to perilous, pulse-racing, gravity-defying stuntwork, he's the "King of the World!"
The aptly-titled "Safety Last" is without a doubt Lloyd's signature film. The indelible still taken of Harold dangling from the minute-hand of that Big Ben-looking clock is definitive silent screen imagery. A shame too for it is only one classic moment from a tireless legacy of work that is too often overlooked.
Isn't it amazing that despite knowing the outcome of this movie, knowing that Lloyd survived all these crazy stunts, your heart still skips a beat every time he scales that 12-story building, floor by floor, encountering every obstacle imaginable...or unimaginable? Those pesky pigeons, the mouse, the flagpole, the painters, the rope, the mad dog and, of course, the clock. What adds to the intrigue is knowing he did his own stunts, that he had lost fingers prior to this filming in another movie mishap, that there were no safety nets underneath, and that there was no trick photography used. I say Harold deserves a more prominent place in movie history, suffering for his art as no other artist has.
The plot leading up to his daredevil antics is fairly pat but sprayed throughout with inventive sight gags. Harold plays your simple, hapless, small-town 'everyman' who goes to the BIG city to seek fame and fortune, leaving his true love (played by Mildred Davis, his real-life wife) at home until he's makes it. Fresh off the bus, he eventually manages to scrape up a job as a clerk in a department store, a job that takes him nowhere fast. To save face, he keeps sending expensive trinkets back home that indicate otherwise. Convinced that he has indeed made it, she heads off to the BIG city to join him, much to his chagrin. Desperate to earn quick cash before she discovers the truth, he takes his boss up on an offer and works up a publicity ruse to drum up sales for the store.
The rest is classic Lloyd. Wearing his trademark straw hat and horn-rimmed glasses, the meek mouse suddenly turns into Mighty Mouse as our boy, through a series of mishaps, literally moves up in the world, scaling heights even he never dreamed of!
All's well, of course, that ends well, as we've been saying for centuries. Sure, we know how things ended back in the good ol' days, but isn't it great to know that when Harold got the girl, he STAYED with the girl? In real life, Harold and Mildred remained sweethearts for over 45 years.
Highly recommended for those who want to see more of this genius's amazing work is "Kid Brother" and "The Freshman." For me, this guy still provides one heck of an "E" ticket rollercoaster ride. -
The first half of this film takes place between Harold Lloyd and his fiancée. Harold works as a clerk in a department store. There are plenty of sight gags in this section, including the hilarious scene where Harold hides in a coat hanging on a coat tree. You have to see this to believe it.
The second part of the movie consists of Harold climbing up the side of a building. Forget that this movie was made in 1923. This scene is one of the most hair-raising things ever filmed and will have you on the edge of your seat. It builds and builds with one gag after another, climaxing in the timeless movie image that everyone has seen, of Harold hanging from the hands of the clock on the building. Every time I watch this scene I get very nervous.
I highly recommend this film even if you are not a fan of silent films. Though Harold Lloyd's overall fame was eclipsed by Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, this film deserves to been seen and ranks as one of the best silents ever made.
See it on DVD. -
Safety Last was funny pretty much throughout its entirety. The scene where Harold and his roommate hide in their coats (you'd have to see it to know what I'm talking about) got an enormous laugh which lasted for a long time, followed by some applause. I remember that there was a slow section, lasting about 5 minutes, after Harold's fiancee arrived in the city, but other than that, this film was consistently hilarious.
And then during the building climbing scene, there were so many laughs and gasps, applause, and shouts ("OH MY GOD!") coming from the audience. It was probably the single most hair-raising scene that I or most of the other people in the theater had ever seen. And the climb, which lasts, I believe, 12 stories, should have gotten old. But it never came close to getting old. Each joke was masterful.
After having seen the film, I was unfairly comparing it to the silent film that I had seen the previous week at a theater with live piano: Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr. Well, nothing is really comparable to that film. I consider it the funniest film I've ever seen. I was planning to give Safety Last a 9/10, but after some thought, I realized that I laughed a lot harder and more at this film than 90% of the other comedies I've seen. At least 90%, but probably much more. I have to give this a 10/10. This film really should be on DVD, or at least VHS. Harold Lloyd shouldn't be as forgotten as he is. -
AlsExGal7 October 2023Harold Lloyd is "The Boy" who travels to the big city to "make good" so he can send for his girl (Mildred Davis as Mildred) and marry her. But Harold is just a lowly clerk at a department store. He does without meals and even has to dodge the landlady so that he can buy expensive jewelry and send it back home to Mildred and make her think he is a success until he can find some real achievement. But the ruse backfires when Mildred's mother convinces her that it is dangerous for a young man to have so much money in the big city and also be alone. Thus she shows up unannounced at the department store one day and Harold has to convince her that he is someone of importance AND not get fired in the process. Complications ensue.
Harold Lloyd, one of the three great silent comics along with Chaplin and Keaton, carved out a niche that was distinct from the others in that he was always working from within the system where Chaplin and Keaton were either outcasts or rebels. Here he shows that success is possible and laudable, but it is often done in small and even reluctant steps. My favorite scene isn't the long one where he climbs the side of the building. Instead my favorite is where Harold shows Mildred around the office of the store's general manager - she believes that is who he is - and manages to sidestep every potentially catastrophic situation with great ingenuity.
Something that others may or may not appreciate but that I always enjoyed is that, since much of this is taking place in a 1920s department store, there is a real opportunity to see the advertised high fashions of the day versus what average people are wearing. And also there is perhaps a goof shown. When Lloyd does his famous climb up the side of a building you can clearly see another tall building with a sign saying "Blackstone's - California's Finest Store". There really was such a building, in Los Angeles. Though the film never says what big city Harold has traveled to in order to seek his fortune, his character is supposed to be from Indiana. That would be quite a trip in 1923 when Chicago is much closer. Just something weird that I happened to notice.
If you are just getting familiar with Lloyd I'd start with this one. It really demonstrates everything he was good at. -
Ron Oliver14 January 2000The "human fly" antics which ends this movie is undoubtly the most famous sequence in all of silent cinema. It is also the most hilarious. Breathtaking, heart-stopping & very funny, it is the element that you remember the longest. While THE KID BROTHER was Harold Lloyd's masterpiece, SAFETY LAST was & is his most famous movie.
But don't overlook the rest of the film in which he plays a lowly store clerk (dealing with frantic female shoppers and an imperious floorwalker) who tries to convince his rather gullible girlfriend - played by real-life wife Mildred Davis - that he's actually the store manager.
Throughout, Harold Lloyd is beyond praise. His comic genius makes it all look so easy. And his athletic daredeviltry is even more amazing when you realize that 2 of the fingers on his right hand are fake - he lost the real digits in a freak studio accident. -
cammie28 June 2003In the era of silent comedies, the man who was 2nd only to Charlie Chaplin was not Buster Keaton, but Harold Lloyd. Though he has since been mostly forgotten, except by film historians (who reluctantly list him automatically as the third great silent comedian behind Keaton and Chaplin), Lloyd's is still remembered for his clock sequence in Safety Last. More recently, this has been reproduced in "Back to the Future" and "Shanghai Knights".
However, it is not just the skyscraper sequence that makes this film special. Harold portrays his usual go-getter self, as his character moves to the city and tries to become a successful businessman, in order to impress his girlfriend. Along the way, there are many amusing mishaps, which conclude with the aforementioned skyscraper sequence. Quite magical in its silence, as compared to the later remake, also by Lloyd, "Feet First".
Highly recommended for silent film fans, and anyone wanting to get a taste of the genre. -
ccthemovieman-120 April 2006This movie is famous for one scene: Harold Lloyd hanging from a big clock near the top of a tall building. It is one of the most famous "stills" in film history and every film fan knows the shot.
Unfortunately, the whole film doesn't match up to that memorable scene. Granted, the last 15 minutes are fun to w watch as Lloyd slowly climbs this tall building with one obstacle after another hindering his efforts. It's almost too tense to watch in parts as our hero almost falls numerous times. Lloyd had incredible dexterity.
The rest of the movie, about an hour, is so-so with a couple of funny scenes but not as many as in some other of Lloyd's silent comedies. I didn't care for the storyline, either, the typical one in which the lead lies the whole time, trying to impress his girlfriend. She (Mildred Davis), isn't a whole lot better herself, only being faithful to her possible husband-to-be if he's got enough money! So much for true love. -
theowinthrop20 November 2005It has truly said that while THE FRESHMAN, or SPEEDY, or THE KID BROTHER, are better films, SAFETY LAST is the film that everyone who never saw a Harold Lloyd comedy recalls. That is because in one moment on the screen he engraved himself forever into the minds of movie lovers (something, oddly enough, Chaplin and Keanton never quite did in a single moment of film). Lloyd, of course, became immortal for being the man suspended from the clock of the building he was climbing in the concluding half hour of this wonderful comedy. There is more to the film than that of course. Harold, here in love with his home town girlfriend Mildred Davis (who was his wife in real life), has sacrificed money to buy her jewelry, and has been sending her letters lying about his business success. He claims he is a bigwig at the department store he is a clerk in. Actually he is constantly in hot water with the pompous floor walker, Mr. Stubbs (Westcott Clarke). After he sends a second gift to Mildred she decides to join him in the city. He manages to pass himself off as the store's general manager (don't ask - you have to see how he does it). But she wants to get married now - he's making enough supposedly for a house. His best friend is a human fly (Bill Strother), so Harold proposes to the actual general manager a publicity stunt wherein a mystery man will climb the department store facade (15 stories). Unfortunately, Police Officer Noah Young has a grudge against Strother, and keeps preventing him from climbing. So Harold has to climb up the side - with Strother promising to take over at the right moment once he shakes off Young.
Although Chaplin and Keaton's physical comedy included dangers to them (Keaton and the water fall in OUR HOSPITALITY, for example), the climb up the store's facade is considered in a class by itself. Certainly it is one of the few comedy stunts that have been taken apart and analyzed over the years (even when we know how it was done, it still impresses us). The stunt got a life of it's own, beyond the famous clock photograph, because the film's theme is the success theme in American business life. Harold wants to make it in business, and he's just a down-trodden clerk. To make it rich, and to get his girl, he has to risk all on a $1,000.00 gamble. He does in the end, with his "climbing" having been cleverly compared to "climbing" the business ladder or getting ahead in America. When he seems to retreat at one point some of the onlookers shake their heads and point upward. Once he is on his route to success, he can't turn back.
The film is more fun than that particularly good interpretation makes it sound. It deserves a 10 for it's success at remaining a humorous and lasting peace of cinematic comic art, and a fitting monument to that comedy master Harold Lloyd. -
"Safety Last!" is now nearly 100 years old. And, (IMO) that, alone, certainly makes this silent-era slapstick comedy worth at least one view.
But, on top of that - "Safety Last!" (in its final 20 minutes) also delivers (before your very eyes) a truly incredible, daredevil stunt that is guaranteed to amaze and amuse most viewers who can appreciate the over-the-top comedy-style of American comic, Harold Lloyd (1893-1971).
Yep. If you are willing to give "Safety Last!" even half a chance, you definitely won't be disappointed. -
The 1920's were halcyon years for cinema comedy, and the inspired products of that period are among the silent screen's finest offerings These films include Harold Lloyd's amusing masterpiece, "Safety Last!;" "The General" and "The Navigator," both starring Buster Keaton; and dozens of short films featuring the mismatched comic duo, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy
There was certainly no melancholia in the films of Harold Lloyd, who may have lacked the depth of Chaplin and Keaton but who was every bit as funny
Lloyd was working as an extra on the Universal lot when he met Hal Roach, who subsequently produced a series of one-reelers starring Lloyd as a character named Lonesome Luke, a frank imitation of Chaplin's Little Tramp
Later Lloyd was to own character, that of a decent, optimistic, and eager young man who wore horn-rimmed glasses and always emerged triumphant from the incredible scrapes he got into
Sight gags were Lloyd's specialty, as "Safety Last," his noisy and disorderly funny film, was to prove Playing a department store clerk who, through a combination of circumstances, is forced into posing as a professional "human fly," Lloyd climbs up the side of a tall skyscraper as traffic whizzes below You will surely squealed with delight as Lloyd missed his footing and grabbed the hands of a huge clockonly to have the face of the clock open out, leaving Lloyd hanging in midair -
thinbeach30 June 2018Harold climbed a twelve story building as a publicity stunt to attract attention for the business he worked for, and it worked, for this is one of his most renowned films, thanks largely to the image of his dangling by the clock hand over busy city streets below. Harold impresses his girlfriend by pretending to be far more impressive than he really is. Whether spending his last pennies to buy her jewellery, even when he can't afford rent, and impersonating the general manager of his fabric store, even when he is just a salesman, his life is a constant facade, and fittingly (no pun intended), constantly spiralling out of control, in ever so silly a fashion (ok, maybe a small pun). It is not always logical, but it is always entertaining.
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overtradeiron19 April 2023I didn't enjoy this very much. I couldn't help but see Harold as a try hard. Attempting to live up to the reputation of Chaplin and Keaton, but failing in what possibly is one of the most cringes silent film I've ever seen.
Harold is way overactive, and what he lacks is subtlety. There is very little to no subtlety in this film.
I respect the craft, and being 100 years old, I won't take away the fact that this was a huge effort to create. But it didn't age well.
It's not for me. If it is for you, more power to you. But I won't be watching this again, and I can't see any reason to recommend it to anyone.
3/10. -
This is an excellent comedy in the best tradition of the silent classics. It is pleasant and lively, with a story revolving around silly predicaments combined with a good assortment of gags, and it all leads up to a terrific finale that combines humor with excitement and suspense.
Harold Lloyd has an ideal role as an earnest young man trying to make good in the big city so that he can impress his girlfriend. His antics in the department store are very amusing - in this part, it's hard not to be reminded of "Are You Being Served?" - there is even Stubbs the floorwalker fussing endlessly over trivial details. The situation is built up nicely until we get to the famous climbing scene that climaxes everything. This climax is one of the best sequences of its kind, set up very carefully and executed skillfully with lots of good detail.
Most fans of silent comedies should find "Safety Last" to be very enjoyable. And even those who do not normally watch silent comedy should be able to appreciate its masterful and thoroughly entertaining conclusion. -
planktonrules28 June 2005This was a wonderful film that lasted only about 50 minutes--though some versions run shorter or longer. For years, the only version available was the shorter sequence involving climbing the building. Then, the Lloyd family more recently released a complete 70+ minute version. I've seen both and both I would score iun each about a 10. I was NOT aware of this difference when I first reviewed the movie--having reviewed it for the SHORT version. Later, I saw the full version and the review was updated in light of this.
Safety Last has a rather thin plot in the shortened version and is jam-packed full of insanely dangerous looking stunts in both. In this sense, it is probably the BEST film of its type---by Lloyd, Keaton or Chaplin. However, because it has so many stunts, it lacks some of the charm of his other longer movies--especially if you see the short version. The longer adds the rather familiar plot of Harold meeting a sweet girl and wanting to make good. This is familiar, but handled very well. While I think I prefer THE FRESHMAN as well as THE KID BROTHER, this is a wonderful don't-miss film and is a must-see for any true cinephile as it's filled with great laughs and in unbelievably creative and fresh. -
Xstal22 September 2020As iconic and legendary a finale and climax as just about any; not just a great silent film but a great film full stop - and performed in the most inappropriate footwear imaginable! After all these years and knowing doubles were used it still leaves my heart in my mouth for some of stunts and, when not filled with heart, it's usually flapping open, agog at the sheer brilliance and excitement of such an original and timeless performance.
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ackstasis30 March 2007Harold Lloyd's 'The Boy' is the sort of silent comedy character we can all sympathise with young, ambitious, enthusiastic. Parting with the girl he loves (Mildred Davis), with the promise of marrying her once he has "made good", our hero departs for the big city to make his fortune. He shares accommodation with a pal of his (Bill Strother), but their collective savings are always dwindling, and often nonexistent. To make ends meet, Lloyd works as a clerk at a prominent department store, but just about everything he earns is used to buy gifts for his girl. Writing to her seven days a week, his letters and presents are usually accompanied by a false commentary of the success he is currently enjoying, and hopeless assurances that marriage is right around the corner.
Paying the rent has become a problem. Lloyd, unbeknown to his roommate, had managed to pawn the record player for twelve dollars, but this money went towards yet another gift to be sent home. Lloyd's friend is sympathetic to his friend's situation, and isn't bitter about the missing record player, though he certainly keeps a closer eye on the potentially-sell-able records scattered across the table. They are good friends, occasionally getting into bouts of mischief together.
The first half of the film relates to Lloyd's desperate attempts to simply stay afloat. If he loses his job, he knows that his life is ruined. And so, when Lloyd is unwittingly driven away from the doorstep of his workplace by the deaf driver of a van with automatically-locking doors, he has ten minutes to get back to his job, or else he risks getting inharmoniously fired. We find many a laugh in this scenario Lloyd is unable to find a place on a ludicrously-overcrowded tram, and the offer of an automobile driver to give him a ride turns out to be more trouble than it's worth (for both driver and passenger). An ambulance eventually offers Lloyd the salvation he was looking for, and his inspired ploy to get to work on time nearly gives the paramedic a heart attack of his own!
Having finally made it to work (his lateness relatively unnoticed), we discover that Lloyd's job presents him with more troubles than he encountered trying to get there. The women customers about him are absolutely ravenous, clutching violently at lengths of fabric, and shouting deafeningly to be served next. His disheveled appearance gets him into trouble with Mr. Stubbs, the snobbish and self-important floorwalker. Things get much, much worse when Lloyd's girlfriend, mistakenly believing that he is now successful enough to support a family, takes a train to the city to be with him. Surprised and embarrassed to see her, Lloyd promptly pretends to be the general manager of the department store, loudly reprimanding his co-workers and even his superiors to maintain the deception.
Accidentally overhearing the real general manager of the store, Lloyd strikes upon a grand solution to his monetary troubles. If he is able to bring hundreds of potential customers to the building, he asks, will the manager reward him with one thousand dollars? Yes, he will. Lloyd then rushes off to enlist his Pal to spectacularly climb the 12-storey department store building, having seen him do something similar earlier whilst escaping from a police officer. Finally, everything is arranged, and Lloyd needs only to sit back and wait for the extraordinary bonus to come his way.
Things, as we might have expected, do not quite go to plan. It truly is a wonder that I have come this far into my review without even a mention of Lloyd's famous building climb, the spectacular extended sequence towards which everything in the film had been leading. That iconic image of a panic-stricken Lloyd, the street traffic leering ominously below him, dangling precariously from the hands of a clock-face has become permanently imprinted in the minds of millions, many of whom have never even had the pleasure of seeing 'Safety Last!' Even more than eighty years later, the illusion of height remains incredibly convincing, practically flawless, in fact. Though various theories have floated around over the years about how the deception was achieved, a likely theory is that the building Lloyd climbs was actually a fake wall constructed on the roof of a skyscraper. Through clever photography and camera angles, we are wholly duped into believing that, below Lloyd, lies a 12-storey fall and certain death. All the more remarkably, Lloyd achieved these complex stunts using only 8 fingers, having lost a right thumb and index finger in 1919 when a prop bomb exploded in his hands.
His Pal being temporarily engaged in other matters, Lloyd is inevitably forced to climb the building himself, and he is besieged by just about every obstacle imaginable: a pesky flock of pigeons, an entangled tennis net, a plank of wood, a swinging window, the celebrated giant clock, a loose rope, a ferocious dog, a flimsy flagpole, a mouse that climbs into his trousers, a revolving weather vane (watch how the film delightfully keeps us in suspense, as Lloyd's head comes within centimetres of the spinning object on several occasions) and a second rope which gets entangled around Lloyd's ankle.
A solid silent comedy, with one of the most engaging final sequences in any film ever made, Harold Lloyd's 'Safety Last!' is a marvel of 1920s comedy film-making. Sometimes called "the third genius," Lloyd (though actually the most commercially-successful of the three in his day) has often stood in the shadows of the incredible Charlie Chaplin and the inimitable Buster Keaton. My first foray into Lloyd's films has proved an exciting one, and I will continue to look on with interest! -
SnorrSm19894 October 2006Young Harold seeks success in the big city, hoping to impress his girlfriend Mildred and be a worthy future husband to her. She's made to believe that he's instantly successful, but actually, circumstances are not as good as she thinks. Harold does everything he can to make her believe that he has managed to become the president of a big department store, while in reality he's only another clerk behind the desk. Life is all in all quite difficult for him.
He gets beyond just glad when the real president of the store declares he is willing to give one thousand dollars to anyone able to bring more customers to the store. Harold offers his room-mate half the sum if he's able to climb to the top of the department building from the outside as a publicity stunt. His friend has proved to be an extraordinarily gifted climber, and agrees to do it. Everything seems well until a cop, who's promised to put Harold's friend in jail if he ever sees him again after a misunderstanding some days earlier, arrives outside the building, and our hero is obliged to perform the stunt by himself.
SAFETY LAST! is considered Harold Lloyd's signature work, and it's easy to see why. It is, perhaps, not quite as character-driven as some of his later features, providing less of the warmth of THE KID BROTHER, but it easily ranks among the most accomplished (and ambitious) film comedies produced up to 1923, the last part with Harold climbing the huge building being the obvious, iconic highpoint. Although more recent sources have confirmed that Lloyd actually used stunt-men from time to time, also in this one, there's no doubt that he exposed himself to several risks. It is said that parts of the public who watched this back in the 1920s literally fainted; and while that's not quite the case with me, I'm definitely thrilled each time I see it.
From SAFETY LAST! on, Harold Lloyd was the only film comedian on the globe who could compete with Charlie Chaplin in terms of popularity, and Lloyd was very arguably the more prolific one during the decade, producing some 11 features compared to Chaplin's three. He may not, rightly or wrongly, have received the same amount of recognition from the "highbrows" of the day, but as an "architect" of comedy, as Orson Welles put it, Lloyd remains one of the very best, his best features being enormously entertaining to watch.
You'll certainly like (or love) SAFETY LAST! if you're a silent comedy-buff, and it should also serve as a perfect start to anyone not that familiar with movies from the time your grandparents were young and pretty. In fact, when I once got the chance to view the film to a group of children, 9-10 years of age, they quickly overcame any potential prejudices, beginning to laugh little by little, and the finale made them scream of excitement, quite literally! (This review was somewhat revised in 2015) -
AverageMillennial12 September 2020Safety Last was definitely a movie I was excited for. After watching, I am happy to report I was GLAD I watched it. Was it a phenomenal movie? No. Was it a good movie? Absolutely. I had a few chuckles here and there and I can see why Lloyd is known as one of the best. He is pretty distant behind Chaplin, in my opinion, but I can see the hype around him. I thought the plot was OK, but at times I felt a little bored. This paid of in the end when watching the famous clock scene. This scene was incredible and way, WAY ahead of its time. The acting was fine and the score behind it wasn't the worst either. I wouldn't say this is an all time great movie, but I will say the clock scene is iconic. I would recommend watching it just for that scene. I was happy at the end and can see why it is beloved by so many.
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vox-sane17 April 2002Many people like to lump Chaplain, Keaton and Lloyd into a stew as "great silent comics"; but they are all incomparable. Of the three, Lloyd is perhaps the most modern. He looks like a push-over (and played one in "The Kid Brother") but his character was more like a Bill Murray character today: irreverent, occasionally mean, sassy, and ultimately good hearted.
"Safety Last" was Lloyd's best feature (though some would argue for "The Kid Brother"), a metaphor for America's rise to the top in the 1920s, after a long struggle. Only after World War I could America really assert its dominance on the world stage, though it was also, just then, very isolationist. The stock market was booming. People sought cheap thrills, and dare-devil acts were everywhere -- flagpole sitters, wing-walkers, human flies . . .
Lloyd plays a poor young man who leaves his home town sweetheart to make his fortune in the big city. Some time later, he's working at a counter at a department store and still very poor. Two things happen simultaneously: he learns his girl is coming to the city to see how he's succeeding (he's been writing letters home that are full of deception); and he learns the store wants a gimmick to attract more people.
Lloyd's best friend is a construction worker. The two of them previously played a practical joke on a mutual friend who is a policeman -- but it's the wrong policeman. He doesn't see Lloyd, but chases his friend, who escapes by climbing a building. The friend later confides to Lloyd he used to have a human fly act.
Lloyd persuades him to climb the department store, and then sells the human fly gimmick to the store's head honcho. But as Lloyd's friend arrives at the building, he finds the policeman who's looking for him is hanging around. He's chased up through the building. He tells Lloyd to go up the first story, and then he'll swap coats and hats and go the rest of the way. Lloyd's character is wary, but committed to the act.
Unfortunately, every time Lloyd gets to a higher floor, the policeman has caught his friend. Lloyd has to climb one story after another, and each time a new and original obstacle is put in his way (including the infamous clock, which produces Lloyd's iconic image).
Like the best comedies, it starts with a plot and believable characters, then builds inexorably and even inescapably toward one of the funniest half-hours in motion picture history as Lloyd's character scales the side of his store to success and love.
A documentary on Lloyd produced by the BBC, called "Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius", gives some spoilers as to how the climb was accomplished. By clever forced perspective, camera angles, and fine acting on Lloyd's part, the illusion is maintained that he is actually in danger(Lloyd actually is as high as he appears, whatever other sleight of hand Lloyd's crew pulls). This helps build a tension that augments rather than dampens the laughs.
And Lloyd saves the best trick for the climax. -
mxddiie0729 January 2021Right off the bat, the humor that ensued immediately told me as a viewer that this was going to be no boring story. Although, I did feel like the movie jumped far too soon into the storyline. Normally, when I think of a film, there's at LEAST ten minutes, if not more (not included opening titles, etc.), where the audience gets some background information and is slowly climbing into the roller coaster ride. I feel like in this film, we automatically get onto the roller coaster without a safety speech and how to correctly put on the seatbelts. I soon left my worries behind as I watched countless trick after trick be played out by none other than Harold Lloyd himself. Some tricks were unpredictable while most were out of the blue and quite clever. I thought the score for the film was absolutely incredible. It felt as though every character or character duo had their own theme (proven by the drunk man towards the end of the movie when his screen time is accompanied by a certain style of music to give the affect that he's intoxicated). This observation lay outside of the pre-existing change of music as the score follows each scene. Not only this, but I found it impressive how much the film jumped back and forth between different stories. What I mean is, for example, we can see what happens between our main character and his boss and the shots cut back and forth. We can see different situations occurring at the end of the film as the climb takes place. This gives a sense that the viewer isn't immersed in just one branch of the scene. However, I found that the scene of the climb was painfully long. It can be argued that the film essentially led up to this moment, and you can't really skip parts and end up from the second floor to the fifth floor. Seeing different characters within the scene, like Bill and the cop, the drunk man, and Mildred helped break up the abundance of screen time Harold had. It had felt long and drawn out. The acting in this movie was capturing and entertaining, as they have to tell the story with expression, not their words. This movie felt more like an extended comic clip rather than a film, but the benefit of the doubt should be given because...well, it's an early silent film. Although it may be ahead of it's time from how I perceive silent films to be, there are still aspects that weren't fully developed or taken advantage of. Overall, even if my attention's grab faded away as the movie progressed, I was pleasantly surprised with the overall production and output of this film.
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Film aficionados know that Harold Lloyd – along with Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton – was the third member of the greatest movie comics in silent movie history. Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle could have been a fourth member had his career not been ruined in 1921. Harold Lloyd, whose trademark was a straw hat, horned-rimmed eyeglasses, and a regular suit, made more films than Chaplin and Keaton combined. For a time he was even more popular than they. Most of Lloyd's films were shorts, many of the "Lonesome Luke" variety. "Safety Last" was one of his earlier features, and it is so good that it appears on some Top 100 listings of American films. It certainly belongs on the best listings of silent films; in 1994 it was preserved in the National Film Registry. And it made Roger Ebert's top 375 list.
At a train station (we are initially fooled to think we are in a prison) "the boy" (Harold Lloyd) says goodbye to his girl (Mildred Davis) in Great Bend to make good in the big city (Los Angeles). Only then will he send for her to join him in marriage. In the big city, Harold shares an apartment with his friend Limpy Bill to save money. He does get a job as a regular sales clerk in De Vore's Department Store. He scrapes together all he has to send Mildred a pendant, all the while exaggerating his position and pay. When Mildred's mother finds out, she advises her daughter to go to the city to see Harold, as the city is dangerous for a single man with all of that supposed money. Happy to see his fiancée, Harold realizes that he needs to demonstrate a high position in the store by a series of silly antics. If anything, Harold's lowly position of $15 .00 weekly is precarious as he has to watch out for the martinet floorwalker. Then Harold overhears his general manager declare that more publicity needs to be done to drum up business. He is willing to pay $1,000 to anyone who climbs up the Bolton Building (actually the 1912 Brockman Building) that houses De Vore's store.
By a complication it is awkward Harold who is reluctantly forced to scale the twelve-story skyscraper. As a crowd gathers and watches in amazement, Harold monkeys up the building's exterior. He meets all kinds of obstacles. They include his getting whacked by a plank and getting assaulted by three kinds of animals (birds, a pit bull, a mouse). Harold winds up dangling from the hands of the large clock that lies on the side of the building's tenth story far above the 1922 busy street traffic. Than the clock's facing opens, and Lloyd's iconic image was cemented that day. Note that Lloyd had already lost a thumb and a finger on his right hand from a 1919 accident (The injury was hidden by his special gloves.). Even after escaping he concludes by tripping on a rope and staggering along the building's upper ledge at the roof line. Waiting for him on the rooftop is Mildred.
In an era before computer-generated imagery and advanced camera tricks, Harold Lloyd does appear to be doing his own stunts. And even though there was a scaffold below him with a mattress (should he fall), there was no guarantee that he was out of danger. A three-story fall on a mattress is not assurance of safety (Safety Last indeed!). By the way, it took four months to shoot the famous Brockman climb. After the movie was made, Harold married his sweetheart Mildred for real.
In the beginning (1913) Lloyd may not have been a natural comedian, but his stunts and gags were eventually good enough to out-gross both Chaplin and Keaton in the 1920s. He was a top ten movie star for years. Perhaps his success was such that he looked like the common man that audiences were able to identify with (unlike, say, a Chaplin tramp). Although he did not always do the right thing in his films, he was generally decent. In real life he was a good businessman who bought and saved his films before they could be lost or destroyed like those of so many others, like 1920s cowboy star Fred Thomson. Even though Lloyd faded more than Chaplin and Keaton with the advent of the talkie era, he was both chipper and happy to keep his works preserved, like "Grandma's Boy" (1922), "The Freshman" (1925), and "Speedy" (1928). It all worked out in the end, and as of this writing his granddaughter helps keep alive his famous legacy. -
I had seen the famous scene of Harold Lloyd hanging from a clock many times before, but I wanted to understand the full context of it, so I gave Safety Last! A shot. That climbing part is very impressive, and stands as a monument of how stunt work, visual effects, acting & editing can create a highly memorable movie moment. However, the story does take its time getting to that scene, and the laughs, while there, weren't as plentiful as I anticipated during this comedy. I don't regret watching Safety Last at all, and I would recommend others watch it, but it's just not one of my favorite silent films.
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k-boughton31 January 2021First off I have to point out how beautifully this film used foreshadowing to lead you to the end of the story. The film starts with Harold behind bars with a noose looking rope hanging. Of course in that moment Harold was fine. It was all set up to foreshadow the ending with Harolds friend running from the cop and Harold being forced to climb the building as he deals with something more and more life threatening the higher he climbed. This film also showed how far a man was willing to go for the woman he loved. Harold throughout the film told lie after lie and spending every cent he had to keep the woman he loved believing he was doing well financially. Harold would go to any length to keep this facade up no matter how idiotic or dangerous his stunts became. Truthfully although this film is a comedy I think it showed the deep insecurities men felt during that time due to how difficult it was to not only be employed but to provide the best life for the ones they loved.