Safety Last! is a 1923 American silent romantic-comedy film starring Harold Lloyd. It includes one of the most famous images from the silent-film era: Lloyd clutching the hands of a large clock as he dangles from the outside of a skyscraper above moving traffic. The film was highly successful and critically hailed, and it cemented Lloyd's status as a major figure in early motion pictures. It is still popular at revivals, and it is viewed today as one of the great film comedies.[5]
The film's title is a play on the common expression "safety first", which describes the adoption of safety measures as a means to avoid accidents, especially in workplaces. Lloyd performed some of the climbing stunts himself, despite having lost a thumb and forefinger four years earlier in a film accident.[6]
In 1994, Safety Last! was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It is one of many works from 1923 that notably entered the public domain in the United States in 2019, the first time any works had done so in 20 years.[7]
Plot
In 1922, Harold Lloyd is behind bars. His mother and his girlfriend, Mildred, are consoling him as a somber official and priest show up. The three of them walk toward what looks like a noose. It then becomes obvious they are at a train station and the "noose" is actually a trackside pickup hoop used by train crews to receive orders without stopping, and the bars are merely the ticket barrier. He promises to send for his girlfriend so they can get married once he has "made good" in the big city. Then he is off.
He gets a job as a salesclerk at the De Vore Department Store, where he has to pull various stunts to get out of trouble with the picky and arrogantly self-important head floorwalker, Mr. Stubbs. He shares a rented room with his pal "Limpy" Bill, a construction worker.
When Harold finishes his shift, he sees an old friend from his hometown who is now a policeman walking the beat. After he leaves, Bill shows up. Bragging to Bill about his supposed influence with the police department, he persuades Bill to knock the policeman backwards over him while the man is using a callbox. When Bill does so, he knocks over the wrong policeman. To escape, he climbs up the façade of a building. The policeman tries to follow, but cannot get past the first floor; in frustration he shouts at Bill, "You'll do time for this! The first time I lay eyes on you again, I'll pinch you!"
Meanwhile, Harold has been hiding his lack of success by sending his girlfriend expensive presents he cannot really afford. She mistakenly thinks he is successful enough to support a family and, with his mother's encouragement, takes a train to join him. In his embarrassment, he has to pretend to be the general manager, even succeeding in impersonating him to get back at Stubbs. While going to retrieve her purse (which Mildred left in the manager's office), he overhears the real general manager say he would give $1,000 to anyone who could attract people to the store. He remembers Bill's talent and pitches the idea of having a man climb the "12-story Bolton building", which De Vore's occupies. He gets Bill to agree to do it by offering him $500. The stunt is highly publicized and a large crowd gathers the next day.
When a drunkard shows "The Law" (the policeman who was pushed over) a newspaper story about the event, the lawman suspects Bill is going to be the climber. He waits at the starting point despite Harold's frantic efforts to get him to leave. Finally, unable to wait any longer, Bill suggests Harold climb the first story himself and then switch his hat and coat with Bill, who will continue on from there. After Harold starts up, the policeman spots Bill and chases him into the building. Every time Harold tries to switch places with Bill, the policeman appears and chases Bill away. Each time, Bill tells his friend he will meet him on the next floor up.
Eventually, Harold reaches the top, despite his troubles with some hungry pigeons, a net, several cheering girls, an old lady, a construction duo, a clock, a rope, a dog, a mouse, a gun man, a wind gauge, and finally kisses his girl. While they walk away, Harold accidentally steps in a tar pit and loses his boots and socks.
Lloyd hanging from a giant clock on the corner of a building was seen as an iconic image for him, though it was achieved through a certain degree of improvisation.[8][9][10][11][12] Lloyd performed most of his own stuntwork, but a circus performer was used when The Boy hangs by a rope, and a stunt double – sometimes Bill Strother, who played "Limpy" Bill[13] and was a steeplejack who inspired the sequence when Lloyd saw him climbing – was used in long shots. The giant clock scene was filmed on the roof of Western Costume Company.[8]
A number of buildings from 1st Street to 9th Street in downtown Los Angeles, all of different heights, were used, with sets built on their roofs to match the facade of the main building, the International Bank Building at Temple and Spring Streets.[14] In this way, the illusion of Lloyd climbing higher and higher up the side of one building was created (although the streetscapes seen beyond the sets are noticeably different at different stages of the climb).[14]
Stuntman Harvey Parry also appeared in the climactic sequence, a fact he revealed only after Lloyd's death. In the 1980 Thames Television series Hollywood, he discussed at length how the stunts were achieved.[15]
Reception
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (November 2016)
The New York Times gave Safety Last! a very positive review.[16] A contemporary review in Photoplay predicted the film's future: "This new Harold Lloyd farce will become a classic of its kind, or we will miss our guess. For it is the bespectacled comedian's best effort to date." "This is easily one of the big comedies of the year. It is seven-reels in length—but it speeds by with the rapidity of a corking two-reeler," the reviewer concluded.[17]
Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rating of 97% from 70 reviews, with the consensus: "Persuasive enough to give audiences acrophobia when they aren't laughing at Harold Lloyd's antics, Safety Last! is a marvel of visual effects and slapstick comedy."[25]
Home video
The film was released in multiple versions on home video, both on VHS and DVD. It was released via the Criterion Collection on DVD and Blu-ray on June 18, 2013.[26]
^ ab"Filming Safety Last (1923)". Western Costume Research Library. August 21, 2015. Retrieved January 12, 2022. One of the most iconic scenes in silent cinema was filmed on the roof of Western Costume Company.
