Safety Last! (1923)

Directors:

Fred C. Newmeyer
Sam Taylor

Writers:

Hal Roach (story)
Sam Taylor (story)

Release Date:

1 April 1923 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Comedy | Family | Romance

Plot:

When a store clerk organizes a contest to climb the outside of a tall building, circumstances force him to make the perilous climb himself.

Plot Keywords:

Kicked In Butt | Clock Tower | Ambulance | Clock | Construction Worker

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Harold Lloyd	...	The Boy
Mildred Davis	...	The Girl
Bill Strother	...	The Pal
Noah Young	...	The Law
Westcott Clarke	...	The Floorwalker (Mr. Stubbs) (as Westcott B. Clarke)

Runtime:

73 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Certification:

Sweden:Btl

Filming Locations:

Brockman Building - 500 7th Street, Downtown, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Hal Roach Studios Inc.

Trivia:

Harold Lloyd first tested the safety precautions for the clock stunt by dropping a dummy onto the mattress below. The dummy bounced off and plummeted to the street below.

Goofs:

Plot holes: "The Boy" purchases a chain from a stereotypically-portrayed Jewish jeweler. He is shown buying it on a Saturday - when the jeweler would be expected to be closed.

Movie Connections:

Featured in CinéMagique (2002)

Without a Net

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.