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Safety Last was one of Harold
Lloyd's earlier comedy features, and was quite certainly his best, even
though his later The Freshman, cashing in on the collegiate craze of the
times, was commercially the most successful of all his films. But every one
of the Lloyd comedies made a handsome profit and Safety Last certainly shows
why. It is fast, clean, and optimistic; gags follow one upon the other at a
breathless rate, and yet each gag is given the proper time to "build." There
are no dull stretches, either in plot or in comedy, and an abundant variety
of humor, ranging from the pathos (often over-stressed in Lloyd's films) of
his attempts to impress his girl by pretending to be a high-powered
executive when he is still a humble clerk, to the fast knockabout of a
department store sale, the subtleties of avoiding paying the landlady her
overdue rent, the speed and pep of a mad race through the streets to arrive
at work on time, all climaxed by Harold's incredible building-climbing
climax. "Climax" is perhaps an
understatement, since the sequence ran for over a third of the picture!
These scenes, performed without a double, and without the aid of technical
trickery, still thrill while they amuse, for they are so obviously real.
True, cunning camera work
conceals the fact that Harold is working with a net not too far below. And
some of the shots were taken on a building that appeared to be much higher
than it was. (Actually located on a hill, it appeared, even from one or two
stories up, to be towering into the heavens, thanks to the perspective
effects created by other buildings in the lower level.) But even knowing how
these amazing scenes were shot doesn't make them any less impressive,
especially since Lloyd had previously lost several fingers on one hand. (He
uses a rubber glove on that hand, and aside from people who notice that he
does most of his precarious clinging with the other hand, it invariably
passes undetected.) There was nothing terribly subtle about Lloyd's
comedies. They didn't have the pathos or invention of Chaplin, Keaton or
Langdon. They were basically "formula" comedies. But what a wonderfully
polished and expertly manipulated formula it was—with enough variance from
picture to picture to keep audiences happily coming back for more. Mildred
Davis, Lloyd's wife, made a charming and winsome heroine in Safety Last (as
in other Lloyd pictures). Sam Taylor and Tim Whelan directed—and Lloyd
probably directed them. |
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