• Safety Last!

6/13/26 (Sat)

A film deserving of its exclamation point. Harold Lloyd was hugely successful in his day and is often mentioned as the third great silent comedian along with Charles Chaplin and Buster Keaton, both of whom he outgrossed in theaters. The still of him in this film dangling precariously from a skyscraper clock may be the most iconic image of the entire silent era. But somehow his reputation has not lasted to their extent; I’m sure many people assume that the man on the clock is Chaplin. Visually he is not as distinctive with that spiffy college look and could blend easily into the background. So I figured it was about time to catch up with him and see what the praise is all about.

A lowly salesman at a NY department store has told his fiancée back in the countryside that he’s a manager and raking in the bucks, promising to bring her to the city and marry her soon. Unfortunately, she decides to pay him a surprise visit, leading to all sorts of shenanigans as he pretends, in increasingly desperate means, to be the high-ranking employee he led her to believe. When he overhears the general manager pledge a thousand dollars for a PR campaign to attract customers, he concocts a scheme in which his athletic friend will climb the side of a multistory building, convinced that this will attract scores of gapers and publicity. Naturally the friend gets sidetracked – he is being chased by a policemen (it’s complicated) – and Lloyd ends up doing the dangerous deed himself in front of scores of onlookers.

That leads to one of most thrilling sequences ever put to film, caught on location with no CG usage. As if the climb itself isn’t precarious enough on its own, Lloyd throws in an endless bag of gags: a flock of pesky pigeons, windows that open at the wrong times, a gun pointing out a window, a tennis net, a rope that tangles around his feet, a clock that comes apart just as he grabs for it… He has us on edge for the entire climb, an accomplishment for a scene that takes up around one-third of the film. They realized this apparently by ingenious set designs and camera angles, but the effect was dizzying and exhausting.

There were also great sequences earlier like the department store sale when hordes of old biddies are fighting over the cheap merchandise, physically collaring him for help from all directions. At one point, trying to pass a product to one customer in the crowd, he yells, “Look, someone dropped a $50 bill!” When the masses drop to their feet, he lobs the product to the customer just before the others stand up again. There’s another great sight gag when he is hiding behind a moving cart, only to be exposed walking like a frog when the cart takes an unexpected turn. In yet another instance, as he buys a necklace for his fiancée with his meal money, he sees food items on the menu across the way disappear in sequence with each coin that he hands over.

That said, there’s a lot of stale humor as well, especially the puns conveyed irritatingly through dialogue cards. It shouldn’t take that long to set up the story, and relying on cards is never a good idea. Also, I could have done without the black guy shivering up a ladder when a mannequin (actually Lloyd in disguise) comes to life, and the Fagin-like Jewish jewel merchant rubbing his hands in glee at a sale. But those were the times, I guess.

Nevertheless, it’s all worth it to get to that final breathtaking climb. While the film as a whole (which wasn’t even his top-grossing feature) has its issues, that awesome sequence alone is about as good as it gets.