Rent Safety Last! (1923)
4.1 of 5 from 85 ratings
1h 13min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
The comic genius of silent star Harold Lloyd is eternal. Chaplin is the sweet innocent, Keaton the stoic outsider, but Lloyd - the modern guy striving for success - is us. And with its torrent of perfectly executed gags and astonishing stunts, Safety Last! is the perfect introduction to him. Lloyd plays a small-town bumpkin / trying to make it in the big city, who finds employment as a lowly department-store clerk. He comes up with a wild publicity stunt to draw attention to the store, resulting in an incredible feat of derring-do on his part that gets him started on the climb to success. Laugh-out-loud funny and jaw-dropping in equal measure, Safety Last! is a movie experience par excellence, anchored by a genuine legend. - Actors:
- Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Bill Strother, Noah Young, Westcott Clarke, Roy Brooks, Mickey Daniels, Richard Daniels, Ray Erlenborn, William Gillespie, Helen Gilmore, Wallace Howe, James T. Kelley, Billie Latimer, Gus Leonard, Sam Lufkin, Earl Mohan, Marie Mosquini, Fred C. Newmeyer, Charles Stevenson
- Directors:
- Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor
- Producers:
- Hal Roach, Jeffrey Vance, David Gill, Kevin Brownlow
- Writers:
- Hal Roach, Sam Taylor, Tim Whelan, H.M. Walker, Jean C. Havez, Harold Lloyd
- Genres:
- Classics, Comedy
- Collections:
- inema Paradiso's 2023 Centenary Club: Part 2, A Brief History of Film..., Top 10 Films Set in Department Stores, Top 100 AFI Thrills, Top Films, Topping the Music Hall Bill
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 14/09/2020
- Run Time:
- 73 minutes
- Languages:
- English LPCM Stereo, Silent
- Subtitles:
- None
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Full Screen 1.37:1
- Colour:
- B & W
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Musical score by composer Carl Davis from 1989, synchronized and restored under his supervision and presented in uncompressed stereo
- Alternate score by organist Gaylord Carter from the late 1960s, presented in uncompressed monaural
- Audio commentary featuring film critic Leonard Maltin and director and Harold Lloyd archivist Richard Correll
- Introduction by Suzanne Lloyd, Lloyd's granddaughter and the president of Harold Lloyd Entertainment
- Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius, a 108-minute documentary from 1989
- Three newly restored Lloyd shorts: Take a Chance (1918), Young Mr. Jazz (1919), and His Royal Slyness (1920), with commentary by Correll and film writer John Bengtson
- Locations and Effects, a 2013 documentary featuring Bengtson and visual-effects expert Craig Barron
- Interview with Davis from 2013
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Reviews (2) of Safety Last!
Harold Lloyd silent comedy - Safety Last! review by LJ
This silent comedy was my introduction to Harold Lloyd. It had a logical structure and plot and some decent jokes about retail work. Apparently some things never change.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Silent Comedy. - Safety Last! review by Steve
Maybe it’s a shame that the stunt which made Harold Lloyd famous is towards the end of one of his otherwise lesser comedies. He plays his familiar character, the young optimist who struggles through the postwar recession but believes in the American dream and imagines he is a go-getter. If only he could get a break.
Harold leaves his small town for the big city with a plan to send for his girl (Mildred Davis) when he has scaled the corporate ladder… but he only lands a job in sales. This supplies a steady stream of gags and a few laughs. But then… the wage slave must climb the whole department store to drum up publicity.
One of the premier comic action sequences in pictures climaxes with the shop assistant swinging off the flagpole and the hands of the giant clock. It’s simply breathtaking and expertly staged and performed. Lloyd became an icon and the film elevated among the silent masterpieces.
Davis has little to do as the ditsy fiancée who is similarly status hungry. But she’s fun. When she watches her intended (spuriously) boss about the corporate minions it seems to give her sexual pleasure! So the hour it takes to get there is no hardship, but this is remembered for the star’s climactic vertigo inducing acrobatics.
0 out of 0 members found this review helpful.