Modern acrophobes have a lot to celebrate on film. It wasn’t so long ago (to go) that Vertigo was the very tame standard for falling to one’s death. But in recent years, we’ve had The Walk, Fall, Free Solo, all films that will keep heights-fearers catatonic for a week.
And then there’s Safety Last! a 1923 slapstick silent using mostly the tricks of the trade (at the time) to convey dangerous scaling. And to me, this film was scarier than all of those others. Maybe because I just don’t trust 1923 … I feel like that might have been a time before we made “Don’t Be Stupid” laws. I dunno. Maybe because each of the films above features a skilled performer – somebody who has a honed talent for climbing, balance, or both. Harold Lloyd in Safety Last! is a department store salesclerk. He doesn’t have stickum or a rosin bag or a climbing outfit. In the climax of Safety Last!, Harold Lloyd scales the exterior of a 12-story building in a suit & tie, boater, and wearing dress shoes.
This is comedy, 1923 style, and I’m into it.
Harold (aka “The Boy”) starts the film taking a train from Indiana to NYC to make his fortune and summon his girl, Mildred Davis, who also goes by “Mildred” or “The Girl” in this film. I take it that in the early days of film, naming characters wasn’t a thing. I don’t mind. I honestly wish more films would do that; it would be easier to describe characters where you only can remember the actor’s name. The opening shot is clever – we get the impression that Harold is on Death Row, but it’s all just clever staging to make a train station platform look like a gallows. It is fair to say, I liked this film from the outset.
In New York, Harold -like so many others- finds fortune elusive, but he does get work at a downtown department store as somebody Karens yell at constantly. There is one very notable sequence in which Harold gets locked in a laundry cart, accidently driven uptown, and he has to figure out how to make his way back to the store in ten minutes or lose his job. Rent is already too expensive for and his roommate, Bill.
The key moment happens when Harold and Bill mistakenly aggravate a cop, and Bill scales a building to avoid jail. Later in the film, Harold, in an effort to get money and impress his
visiting sweetie, promotes Bill scaling the department store to drive customer engagement. With Bill still running afoul of the law, Harold has to take his place while still dressed for work.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, spoilers. Look, this film is 103 years old; if you haven’t seen it yet, that’s not on me.
I am big fan of the Marx Brothers. I still consider Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera two of the greatest films ever made. Safety Last! isn’t as good as either of those films … but it’s better than everything else the Marx Brothers made. Safety Last! Is clever and fun. While I still haven’t found the attraction of Buster Keaton, I liked Harold Lloyd almost instantly. He plays very convincing dweeb – the perfect character to underestimate, which is pretty much the key to all of the comedy here. Some is slapstick, sure, but a lot of what goes in in the film is watching a guy you’re gonna say, “Oh no! He’s gonna get in trouble!” figure his way out of a jam. If you have a spare 74 minutes and want to know what silent film was all about. Try Safety Last! Believe me, you can do much worse.
In Manhattan, a stranger, The Boy
Struggled until he hit on a ploy
“Watch this distraction!
It will be an attraction!”
That is until his subject played coy
Not Rated, 74 Minutes
Director: Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor
Writer: Hal Roach, Sam Taylor, Tim Whelan
Genre: Using all the tricks of 1923
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Film historians, rock climbers
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: If you have no taste for silent film, well, I think you might still get a kick out of this, but I’m not gonna make ya see it
