Buy Safety Last! on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: Hal Roach & Sam Taylor and Tim Whelan (story), H.M. Walker (titles), Jean C. Havez, Harold Lloyd (uncredited)
Directed by: Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Bill Strother
Rated: NR [G]
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Plot
In this silent film, a boy leaves his small country town and heads to the big city to get a job. As soon as he makes it big his sweetheart will join him and marry him. His enthusiasm to get ahead leads to a daring publicity stunt.
Verdict
This isn't a deeply layered comedic journey, but it is a standout comedy from the time period. The movie is a relic of the past before the novelty of moving pictures. It's difficult not to see this today and wonder why it's popular, but movies have had over a century to improve and innovate. It's slapstick comedy, which I don't like, but I can appreciate what this means to the history of cinema.
It depends.
Review
It's a silent film so the dialog is conveyed with text cards. The comedy has to be visual. This hapless "boy" (Harold Lloyd) moves to the city and gets a job in sales. What follows is a slew of visual gags as he tries to keep his job despite various hurdles.
The boy's girlfriend visits him, assuming he's successful. That leads to a series of events where she mistakes him for the manager and he doesn't dissuade her from the idea while hiding that lie from the real manager. He shows her his 'office,' but of course the girlfriend leaves her purse in the office. The boy must retrieve it without letting the manager know what's going on. That's where the boy overhears a way to make money.
If he can attract customers to the store the general manager will offer one thousand dollars, which would be nineteen thousand today. The boy's scheme is to have his friend climb up the twelve story building of the store. We previously saw the friend escape the cops by climbing up a building. The boy ends up having to climb in his place with his friend promising to take over. Plenty of impediments along the way means the boy keeps climbing higher, but he does attract quite the crowd. With each floor the boy thinks he can hand off the climb to his friend, but that doesn't happen.
The most famous scene of the movie is the boy hanging from the hands of the clock. While the concept and stunt don't seem that novel today, it was huge at the time. It's a silly movie, constrained by the time period and technology. I'm not going to watch it again, but I can appreciate what it means to cinema. It's a film class or history movie. The impact has been dulled by time as creators have used the ideas and improved upon them. Film continues to innovate, leaving this movie behind.
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