Movies - Safety Last!

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	Movies - Safety Last!

Safety Last! is a 1923 comedy silent film starring Harold Lloyd. It includes one of the most famous images from the silent film era: Lloyd clutching the bending hands of a clock on the side of a building as he dangles from the outside of a skyscraper above moving traffic.

Plot

Most of the film's plot is a setup for the stunts of the final sequence. The first scenes show Lloyd behind bars with two women consoling him as a somber official and priest show up and the three of them walk toward what looks like a gallows. The camera then moves to facing towards the bars from the opposite side and it becomes obvious they're in a train station and the noose is a train order dispatch setup. During the farewells with the women who come through the ticket barrier (the bars), he promises to invite his girlfriend to the city once he's "made good". After getting his luggage mixed up with a woman's baby and his train for an oxcart, he's off to the city.

There he gets into a clerk's job at a department store where he has to pull various stunts to get out of trouble with the snobbish floorwalker Mr. Stubbs. He has been renting a room double with his "Pal" Bill who works at a pool hall. When he gets off his shift, he sees an old friend of his as a policeman working the beat. After joking around with him for a while, his Pal shows up. Bragging about what he could get away with his friend in uniform, he invites his friend to knock the policeman backwards over him while he's using the police box. When his Pal does so, he knocks over the wrong one. To escape, he climbs up the façade of a building; the policeman tries to follow but can't get past the 1st floor. Before giving up, the policeman shouts a threat to Bill: YOU'LL DO TIME FOR THIS! THE FIRST TIME I LAY EYES ON YOU AGAIN, I'LL PINCH YOU!

Meanwhile, Lloyd has been attempting to hide his misfortune by sending his girlfriend at home the most expensive presents he can afford. She mistakenly thinks he is already successful enough to support a family and takes a train to visit him. In his embarrassment he pretends to be the store manager when she first arrives, managing to get back at Stubbs for his earlier complains against when he was being attacked by women at his counter. He comes ever closer to losing face and antagonizing his co workers in a series of incidents and accedents. While attempting to retrieve her purse, he overhears the general-manager talking about how he would give 1 000 USD to anyone who attracts major attention to the store. He then remembers his Pal and the policeman, and pitches the idea (with a little help) to his boss.

With the intervention of a drunk, "The Law" (The policeman pushed over) realizes Bill's going to be the one climbing the building. He hangs around and all efforts to get rid of him fail. Finally Lloyd agrees to climb the 1st story and then switch his hat and coat with Bill, who'll continue on from there. After starting up, the Law sees Bill and chases him into the building. From then on Lloyd runs into all sorts of trouble, and at each floor the Law gets to his pal before he can switch out. He eventally does get there, it, and get her.

Background

Lloyd performed his own stunts for the film without the use of wires. He climbed an actual Los Angeles office building, usually with little more than a few mattresses stationed for safety. Special effects of the time were limited to enhancing the apparent height from the sidewalk below. Lloyd actually did dangle above moving traffic. What the shooting conceals is that he had lost the thumb and forefinger of his right hand from an accident in a previous film.

Safety Last! also features Mildred Davis, Bill Strothers, Noah Young and Westcott Clarke. The movie was written by Jean C. Havez, Sam Taylor, H.M. Walker and Tim Whelan. It was directed by Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor for Hal Roach Studios.

The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Safety Last! ]

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