Young 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)
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)