Film aficionados know that Harold Lloyd – along with Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton – was the third member of the greatest movie comics in silent movie history. Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle could have been a fourth member had his career not been ruined in 1921. Harold Lloyd, whose trademark was a straw hat, horned-rimmed eyeglasses, and a regular suit, made more films than Chaplin and Keaton combined. For a time he was even more popular than they. Most of Lloyd's films were shorts, many of the "Lonesome Luke" variety. "Safety Last" was one of his earlier features, and it is so good that it appears on some Top 100 listings of American films. It certainly belongs on the best listings of silent films; in 1994 it was preserved in the National Film Registry. And it made Roger Ebert's top 375 list.
At a train station (we are initially fooled to think we are in a prison) "the boy" (Harold Lloyd) says goodbye to his girl (Mildred Davis) in Great Bend to make good in the big city (Los Angeles). Only then will he send for her to join him in marriage. In the big city, Harold shares an apartment with his friend Limpy Bill to save money. He does get a job as a regular sales clerk in De Vore's Department Store. He scrapes together all he has to send Mildred a pendant, all the while exaggerating his position and pay. When Mildred's mother finds out, she advises her daughter to go to the city to see Harold, as the city is dangerous for a single man with all of that supposed money. Happy to see his fiancée, Harold realizes that he needs to demonstrate a high position in the store by a series of silly antics. If anything, Harold's lowly position of $15 .00 weekly is precarious as he has to watch out for the martinet floorwalker. Then Harold overhears his general manager declare that more publicity needs to be done to drum up business. He is willing to pay $1,000 to anyone who climbs up the Bolton Building (actually the 1912 Brockman Building) that houses De Vore's store.
By a complication it is awkward Harold who is reluctantly forced to scale the twelve-story skyscraper. As a crowd gathers and watches in amazement, Harold monkeys up the building's exterior. He meets all kinds of obstacles. They include his getting whacked by a plank and getting assaulted by three kinds of animals (birds, a pit bull, a mouse). Harold winds up dangling from the hands of the large clock that lies on the side of the building's tenth story far above the 1922 busy street traffic. Than the clock's facing opens, and Lloyd's iconic image was cemented that day. Note that Lloyd had already lost a thumb and a finger on his right hand from a 1919 accident (The injury was hidden by his special gloves.). Even after escaping he concludes by tripping on a rope and staggering along the building's upper ledge at the roof line. Waiting for him on the rooftop is Mildred.
In an era before computer-generated imagery and advanced camera tricks, Harold Lloyd does appear to be doing his own stunts. And even though there was a scaffold below him with a mattress (should he fall), there was no guarantee that he was out of danger. A three-story fall on a mattress is not assurance of safety (Safety Last indeed!). By the way, it took four months to shoot the famous Brockman climb. After the movie was made, Harold married his sweetheart Mildred for real.
In the beginning (1913) Lloyd may not have been a natural comedian, but his stunts and gags were eventually good enough to out-gross both Chaplin and Keaton in the 1920s. He was a top ten movie star for years. Perhaps his success was such that he looked like the common man that audiences were able to identify with (unlike, say, a Chaplin tramp). Although he did not always do the right thing in his films, he was generally decent. In real life he was a good businessman who bought and saved his films before they could be lost or destroyed like those of so many others, like 1920s cowboy star Fred Thomson. Even though Lloyd faded more than Chaplin and Keaton with the advent of the talkie era, he was both chipper and happy to keep his works preserved, like "Grandma's Boy" (1922), "The Freshman" (1925), and "Speedy" (1928). It all worked out in the end, and as of this writing his granddaughter helps keep alive his famous legacy.
At a train station (we are initially fooled to think we are in a prison) "the boy" (Harold Lloyd) says goodbye to his girl (Mildred Davis) in Great Bend to make good in the big city (Los Angeles). Only then will he send for her to join him in marriage. In the big city, Harold shares an apartment with his friend Limpy Bill to save money. He does get a job as a regular sales clerk in De Vore's Department Store. He scrapes together all he has to send Mildred a pendant, all the while exaggerating his position and pay. When Mildred's mother finds out, she advises her daughter to go to the city to see Harold, as the city is dangerous for a single man with all of that supposed money. Happy to see his fiancée, Harold realizes that he needs to demonstrate a high position in the store by a series of silly antics. If anything, Harold's lowly position of $15 .00 weekly is precarious as he has to watch out for the martinet floorwalker. Then Harold overhears his general manager declare that more publicity needs to be done to drum up business. He is willing to pay $1,000 to anyone who climbs up the Bolton Building (actually the 1912 Brockman Building) that houses De Vore's store.
By a complication it is awkward Harold who is reluctantly forced to scale the twelve-story skyscraper. As a crowd gathers and watches in amazement, Harold monkeys up the building's exterior. He meets all kinds of obstacles. They include his getting whacked by a plank and getting assaulted by three kinds of animals (birds, a pit bull, a mouse). Harold winds up dangling from the hands of the large clock that lies on the side of the building's tenth story far above the 1922 busy street traffic. Than the clock's facing opens, and Lloyd's iconic image was cemented that day. Note that Lloyd had already lost a thumb and a finger on his right hand from a 1919 accident (The injury was hidden by his special gloves.). Even after escaping he concludes by tripping on a rope and staggering along the building's upper ledge at the roof line. Waiting for him on the rooftop is Mildred.
In an era before computer-generated imagery and advanced camera tricks, Harold Lloyd does appear to be doing his own stunts. And even though there was a scaffold below him with a mattress (should he fall), there was no guarantee that he was out of danger. A three-story fall on a mattress is not assurance of safety (Safety Last indeed!). By the way, it took four months to shoot the famous Brockman climb. After the movie was made, Harold married his sweetheart Mildred for real.
In the beginning (1913) Lloyd may not have been a natural comedian, but his stunts and gags were eventually good enough to out-gross both Chaplin and Keaton in the 1920s. He was a top ten movie star for years. Perhaps his success was such that he looked like the common man that audiences were able to identify with (unlike, say, a Chaplin tramp). Although he did not always do the right thing in his films, he was generally decent. In real life he was a good businessman who bought and saved his films before they could be lost or destroyed like those of so many others, like 1920s cowboy star Fred Thomson. Even though Lloyd faded more than Chaplin and Keaton with the advent of the talkie era, he was both chipper and happy to keep his works preserved, like "Grandma's Boy" (1922), "The Freshman" (1925), and "Speedy" (1928). It all worked out in the end, and as of this writing his granddaughter helps keep alive his famous legacy.