Sadly Over-hyped

Fantastic!

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

It's not Harold Lloyd's best film, nor my personal favorite, nor his snappiest, warmest, or funniest film (different ones, all), but "Safety Last" is the sky's-the-limit icon for Harold Lloyd. You know the shot; now see where it came from.But first, you have to sit through a long introductory section that is by turns inventive and contrived, a taffy pull which drags even as it offers up some inventive gags. Comedy is hard, even sometimes for the audience. But what a payoff.The story is simple: Harold works at a department store and wants to impress his fiancée (Mildred Davis) by buying her fancy things he can't afford as a sign of imaginary wealth. "She's just got to believe that I'm successful – until I am." His campaign works too well: Mildred's mother sends her daughter to snap up Harold before another woman can.I find Mildred Davis the weak link in this film. She plays a thin character, rather unlikable in the way she fixates on status and relishes Harold ordering people around. Another actress might have played her as an amusing gold-digger, or else a zany flapper with suspicions about Harold's game. Davis tended to stick with sweet and simple, and it feels wrong here.There's also the contrivances, another frequent Lloyd qualm of mine. The opening shot is one of those false opens Harold liked to do, in this case a train station set up to look like a gallows. An overhead mail hook resembles a noose and Mildred's father is a minister, so there's a momentary disassociation, except it's the first scene, so it's forgettable immediately. So is a bit where Harold gets stuck in a laundry truck driven by a deaf driver, making him late for work.But amid the whiffs there are hits, like a scene in a crowded trolley and another about dodging a landlady. As the film moves along, it gets much better.To appreciate "Safety Last," I had to realize from the DVD commentary that the film was constructed in reverse. Lloyd and his team (including writer-directors Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor) had their ending all set, and shot it first: Harold on top of that building, hanging on for dear life. The trick for them was figuring out how he gets up there.When I thought of "Safety Last" that way, the contrivances and gags became much more clever and enjoyable, because they are serving a larger end without my realizing it. Why would Harold go up the 12- story Bolton Building? To draw a crowd and impress his girl. Why does he do it himself, when his roommate (Bill Strother) is a high- rise climber? Because Bill is being chased by a cop. Why is Bill being chased by a cop? You get the picture.A real joy of "Safety Last" is seeing members of Lloyd's stock company show up, including Noah Young as the cop, Charles Stevenson and Anna Townsend from "Grandma's Boy" as an ambulance attendant and a customer, and even Roy Brooks, a fixture of many Lloyd shorts, leaning out a window."That's the best one you pulled yet!" Brooks tells Lloyd as he's clinging from the ledge. Is this a call-back to "Never Weaken," a short made two years before where Brooks played Lloyd's pal while Harold climbed another high-rise chasing after Mildred? I can see Harold dotting the i there, even as he also lets his buddy give "Safety Last" its first and most enduring review.Funny how some people talk about Lloyd's genius but then almost sheepishly admit he wasn't quite risking his neck on that building like he appears to, instead of realizing that makes him even more of a genius.

It's only near my mid-twenties that my interest in movies grew and boy, was I busy! It cost me many valuable social assets but that's another story, it was my existential choice to have an immersion into a whole century of artistic creations, which kind of oblige you to get to the basics first. So in the case of silent movies, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton were the must-see at the expenses of the third icon: Harold Lloyd.I never really dedicated much thought or curiosity to Lloyd, I knew his reputation, his looks, the titles he was most celebrated for, and as if it was enough for my cultural knowledge, I knew his most iconic shot, the one where he… well, you know it. To think that one of my favorite movies is "Back to the Future" and it didn't even encourage me to give the film a shot. I saw that "part" with the clock on Youtube and that was enough. When I finished the film yesterday, I felt guilty, how could I ever miss such a gem of a film? I felt less guilty when I read Roger Ebert's review, he saw it for the first time in the early 2000's, almost twice my age, and he calls himself a movie lover. So, there's a real shadow of mystery about "Safety Last!", a classic of the Golden Age, yet relatively unknown.But let's get this straight: it is a Masterpiece. The film displays a comical instinct that no matter what Ebert said, is on the same level than Keaton or Chaplin, especially when it comes to physical comedy. The silent era was a time of performers, they didn't rely on CGI and stuntmen were mostly advisers, it was Chaplin on this rope with the monkeys in "The Circus", Keaton on the cow catcher in "The General" and it was Lloyd dangling and climbing the facade of the building. The film leaves no mystery about his physical abilities, we see him getting on a train on march, jumping from a car, falling repeatedly, the stunt achieved by Lloyd have nothing to envy from his peers, he masters slapstick as well as Chaplin and Keaton.Yet Ebert commented that that the two legends would always have a universal resonance while Lloyd wasn't a natural, he had to work. Well, he did and it worked. He turned his anonymous and bland looking face as an asset, he was an every-man, too boyish to be a leading figure, too bland to be funny without trying. That was the point: he had to try and after many attempts, he finally found his 'toothbrush mustache': glasses and a straw hat. He created an instantly likable character, or if not likable, one whom the audience could project empathy and positive feelings on. He would be named 'The Boy' or 'Harold Lloyd'. In "Safety Last!" he's a man from a small town who goes to the city and works as a salesclerk in De Vore Department Store.Not the most colorful job, he's no gold miner, no tramp, no train driver but even within the limited range of this situation, Lloyd finds a way to combine slapstick and physical feats: just to avoid another reprimand from his self-important floor-walker, he's got ten minutes to get to his place and clock in. Then the film provides a fantastic race against time that works like a foretaste to the climactic building-climbing. The power of Lloyd is to make a film where every plot point is either an excuse for a gag or a stunt, sometimes both. It's like a situation comedy with a great timing based on misunderstanding and lies. He's not in a bad situation but he makes his girlfriend believe he has some high rank, and naturally, she comes by to check and the whole second act consists on pretending to be the boss and ditching the encounters that might betray his act. It all leads up the climax, that climbing of the 12-store-building, I often wondered what pushed this man to be in that situation, always assuming that he actually got off from a window. Not only he climbed the whole building store by store but each store offers a specific obstacle, he's showered by peanuts attracting pigeons, get a mouse in his pants, catching a rope that is not even tied and so on and so forth, it's an exhaustive experience, one we're forced to see but can't because we don't have the control and he doesn't even seem to have the control himself. Even when he manages to get on the top, a weather vane hits him in the head and he starts moving like Goofy in "Clock Cleaners", I wouldn't be surprised if the film served like an inspiration, it is the pioneer of all these gravity-defying stunts actually.For the trivia, "Safety Last!" was the only comedy to be listed in the American Film Institute's Top 100 Thrills, and it wasn't even in the Top 100 comedies, as shocking as it is (the list included many debatable comedies) it's like the chief emotion of the film is thrills and it is a credit to Harold Lloyd to have made a film capable to grab genuine laughs and where you would grave someone's arm, it is fun and agonizing in the same time. Still, the thrills involved in the film are only the tip of an iceberg. "Safety Last!" is fun before being a heart-pounding experience, and that's saying a lot. Buster Keaton's "General" didn't make in the Thrills but in the Laughs list, and that's how "Safety Last!" works, like a "General" but with a vertical twist and with one of the most iconic images of the silent era.That the AFI would overlook the comedy (it should have, if only for that hilarious opening gag), that Ebert didn't see it until the 2000's, that I only discovered yesterday are just total mysteries.

Everyone, no matter if they have seen the movie or know even who Harold Lloyd is have probably seen the scene where Lloyd is climbing up the building or at least the still where he's hanging off of the clock. It's mow become part of movie history. Anyway this is Safety Last. Lloyd is a young country boy who goes to the big city to find work and a house for himself and his young wife (Mildred Davis). The problem is though that this is going very slowly because he is a small earning store clerk. But one day he overhears an offer of $1,000 to come up with an advertisement campaign to draw thousands of people to the store. Lloyd employs his friend (Bill Strother) a construction worker to climb the building so they can split the money. But when Stother accidentally pushes over a police officer (Noah Young) Lloyd has to climb the building himself. This movie is very funny. The way that it plays out is very funny. The way that the events play out is very funny. It's not the best Lloyd film but it's one of the best. My rating is 8 stars so go check it out.

Thanks to Criterion to have made a Blu-Ray for this movie. If not for the Blu-Ray I doubt if I would have ever seen this.I know of Chaplin and of Keaton as the comic geniuses of 1920's but then along with them was another one called the "The Third One" and his name is Harold Lloyd. And finally, I discovered him and I am so very happy now. The hanging from a multi story building from the watch on the wall, seems to be such an iconic thing in 1920's that its referred many a time in so many movies later and as recently as HUGO. I love that shot and it's called "dangling from the skyscraper", and I suppose anybody who watches this shall really fall for such originality. Also, take a note of a title, SAFETY LAST which means that let's through caution to the winds and just do it. It's an antonym of SAFETY FIRST.The premise which comes in the latter part actually that sets up the whole film is so wonderful that for most part, we shall be laughing 90 years after a film is made, if still that tickles your ribs, then it's simply great. That's what these great movies do. And certainly, this stands right up there. If Chaplin was a genius in humane stories and Keaton was so in making us laugh with his extreme stunts, then Lloyd made me laugh with his simplicity, with his histrionics and with his stunts. It was so very refreshing to see all this in an era where films were so pristine. The sound, rather the music was pitch perfect echoing the emotions of the characters and it was deliberately made funny, which I loved it. There was a time, when the protagonist had to fight against the wails set by the society. Expectations are much higher from family and friends and he has do some extraordinary things to make them happy. Directors, Newmeyer and Sam Taylor must be applauded a great deal for they have pulled a nearly impossible act in 1920's. And, yes Harold Lloyd steals it like a champion, salutations for the whole team. This movie is like Serendipity, which I discovered by accident and loved every bit of it.This movie for sure, is going to be a great movie forever and ever. A 5/5 for this.