Safety Last! (1923)

Originally posted to Facebook on 7/9/2017

Safety Last was the second film we watched from 1923, and it was the first feature starring Harold Lloyd that we’ve seen as part of this project -- though we did separately see 1928’s Speedy last year at the Alamo in Winchester. Additionally we’d also watched a couple of Lloyd shorts prior to starting the 1920s, so the kids are pretty well familiar with him.

This film is most famous for the final sequence involving Lloyd precariously climbing the side of a skyscraper, and, at one point, in perhaps the most iconic image of the silent era, hanging from the hands of a giant clock. That sequence is definitely prominent, but occupies only the last quarter of the film. The bulk of the film involves Lloyd trying to get ahead in the city so that he can send for his girlfriend (Mildred Davis, to whom he was married in real life), who is waiting back in their small hometown. Like a lot of comedies we’ve seen from this period -- or from any period -- the plot isn’t all that cohesive -- there are a lot of random gags and sequences that are shoehorned in a little awkwardly, including the final sequence. The jokes are hit or miss, and I think it’s pretty understandable why the climbing sequence is the portion that still lingers on with something of a half-life in the popular consciousness, though there are some other interesting or amusing bits. One of the recurring sources for these bits -- and I am aware that this is a well-trod romantic comedy trope -- is Lloyd doing an awful lot of borderline pathological lying to his girlfriend about his level of success. This seemed a little wrong-headed to me, and it’s strange that this is so accepted in popular culture when it’s considered almost sociopathic in real life.

Our next film is our third from 1923, and our first feature starring Buster Keaton: Three Ages. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT