For those of you who aren't familiar with the Harold Lloyd classic "Safety Last," surely you'll recall having seen the image of the nerdy-looking bespectacled man hanging high above a bustling city street from the hand of a clock. Despite the desperation this icon film image conveys, the movie is a rollicking comedy.
That's the most memorable of many memorable adventures Lloyd encounters in this movie. He's a farm boy who comes to the city to make a success of himself so he can afford to marry his girl back home. He sells fabric, he dickers with ultra-picky dowager customers (Baby Boomers might not think back to those silent film days when many women still bought more fine fabric than they did ready-to-wear clothing).
Since the film is silent, you rely on Lloyd's facial expressions to see his annoyance, impishness, pathos, fear, joy and relief. You have to be attentive to follow the plot -- i.e., how he winds up on the top floor dangling from the hands of the clock, but the plot is not nearly as important as the action. For instance, Lloyd is scaling the outside of the building, police are after him, and he's always on the ledge outside the window. He has numerous opportunities, of course, to climb in open windows back to safety, but obstacles like pigeons keep foiling his efforts until he is, indeed, on the top floor.
An historical footnote: Harold Lloyd (a native Nebraskan like me) was one of Hollywood's biggest collectors of Christmas ornaments. Now famed designer Christopher Radko has done a number of Harold Lloyd ornaments, including a large one where Lloyd is, of course, hanging from the arms of the clock.
The black and white film is incredibly rich in tones, and still remarkably clear. It's a real treat for those of us born during the "Cinemascope" years to see a genuinely funny film where you have to do some of the work yourself. Be sure to rent it with youngsters as guests! They'll love it, and it will seem new to them -- and maybe to you, too!
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