Review of Safety Last! (1923) by Neil A — 19 Apr 2011

In his silent slapstick masterpiece Safety Last, Harold Lloyd plays a boy who leaves his sweetheart (Mildred Davis, who would later become the real-life Mrs. Lloyd) in Great Bend while he goes off to pursue his fortune in a big city. The Boy gets a job working as a clerk at a fabric counter of a huge department store called De Vore's. He lies in his letters back to his beloved, pretending that he is the store's manager and spends his earnings on expensive gifts to please his beloved. The Boy's roommate, The Pal (Bill Strother) makes his money by performing attention-getting stunts. His real manager promises Lloyd $1,000 if he can come up with some kind of gimmick to get more customers so he convinces his friend to climb the 12-story building and split the money with him. However, when the day for the event comes, The Pal is busy trying to dodge the cops The Law (Noah Young), forcing Lloyd to make the dangerous climb by himself. The higher he climbs the more obstacles he has to face culminating in the most memorable image of the film, Lloyd dangling from the store's clock tower.

Harold Lloyd has justifiably been called the third genius of silent comedies (with Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton being the other two) and this movie made his reputation as one of the greatest stunt devils in film. He goes to great lengths to create some memorable situational and physical gags to show what the ambitious sales clerk is willing to do to make it in the big city and to impress his girlfriend. The famed climax of the film comes when Lloyd is forced to scale the high department store himself when his partner isnâ(TM)t able to do it himself. Lloyd encounters a new difficulty with each story of the building, turning the climb into a hilarious and breathtaking feat. Itâ(TM)s well known that, like Keaton, Lloyd performed his own stunts, yes even actually climbing a real building during the climax of the film although there was one little bit of trickery involved with it; each story had a safety net of some sort right under. Nevertheless this doesnâ(TM)t tame the physical feat one bit because it still takes quite a lot of bravery to such a thing. No matter how Lloyd was able to get it, what we have is one of the most iconic images in the history of cinema. Even if you may have never seen or heard about Harold Lloyd, you most likely are familiar with the image of Lloyd hanging on to one of the hands of a clock at the top of the building he is climbing. Harold Lloydâ(TM)s classic comedy ranks as one of the absolute greatest comedies to ever come out of the silent era or any era. This is essential viewing. 10/10.