Harold Lloyd in “Safety Last“ (1923)

Harold Lloyd (the character has the same name as the actor) is behind bars. His mother and his girlfriend, Mildred (Mildred Davis), are consoling him. They are at a train station, and the bars are merely the ticket barrier. Lloyd promises to send for his girlfriend so they can get married once he has “made good“ in the big city. Then he is off. He gets a job as a salesclerk at the De Vore Department Store, where he has to pull various stunts to get out of trouble with the picky and arrogantly self-important head floorwalker, Mr. Stubbs (Westcott Clarke). He shares a rented room with his pal “Limpy“ Bill (Bill Strother), a construction worker. When Harold finishes his shift, he sees an old friend from his hometown who is now a policeman (Noah Young) walking the beat. After he leaves, Bill shows up. Bragging to Bill about his supposed influence with the police department, he persuades Bill to knock the policeman backwards over him while the man is using a callbox. When Bill does so, he knocks over the wrong policeman. To escape, he climbs up the façade of a building. The policeman tries to follow, but cannot get past the first floor. Meanwhile, Harold has been hiding his lack of success by sending his girlfriend expensive presents he cannot really afford. She mistakenly thinks he is successful enough to support a family and, with his mother’s encouragement, takes a train to join him. In his embarrassment, he has to pretend to be the general manager, even succeeding in impersonating him to get back at Stubbs. While going to retrieve her purse (which Mildred left in the manager’s office), he overhears the real general manager say he would give $1,000 to anyone who could attract people to the store. He remembers Bill’s talent and pitches the idea of having a man climb the “12-story Bolton building“, which De Vore’s occupies. He gets Bill to agree to do it by offering him $500. The stunt is highly publicized and a large crowd gathers the next day. When a drunkard shows “The Law“ (the policeman who was pushed over) a newspaper story about the event, the lawman suspects Bill is going to be the climber. He waits at the starting point despite Harold’s frantic efforts to get him to leave. Finally, unable to wait any longer, Bill suggests Harold climb the first story himself and then switch his hat and coat with Bill, who will continue on from there. After Harold starts up, the policeman spots Bill and chases him into the building. Every time Harold tries to switch places with Bill, the policeman appears and chases Bill away. Each time, Bill tells his friend he will meet him on the next floor up. Eventually, Harold reaches the top, despite his troubles with a clock and some hungry pigeons, and kisses his girl. While they walk away, Harold accidentally steps in a tar pit and loses his boots and socks. A 1923 American black & white silent romantic-comedy film directed by Fred C. Newmeyer, produced by Hal Roach, story. by Roach, Sam Taylor & Tim Whelan, cinematography by Walter Lundin, starring Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Bill Strother, Noah Young, and Westcott Clarke. Lloyd married his co-star Mildred Davis in 1923. They remained married until her death in 1969. They had three children. The title is a play on the expression “safety first“, which prioritizes safety as a means to avoid accidents in workplaces. In 1919 Harold Lloyd was handed what he thought was a prop bomb, which he lit with his cigarette. It turned out to be real and exploded, blowing off Lloyd’s right thumb and index finger, and putting him in the hospital for months. When he recovered, he went back to making movies, wearing a white glove while on screen to hide his damaged right hand. He did his stunts in this film and “Feet First“(1930), dangling from ledges, clocks and windows, using only eight fingers. It includes one of the most iconic images from the silent-film era: Lloyd clutching the hands of a giant clock as he dangles on the corner of a skyscraper above moving traffic. It was achieved through a certain degree of improvisation. Lloyd performed most of his own stuntwork, but a circus performer was used when Lloyd hangs by a rope, and a stunt double – sometimes Bill Strother, who played “Limpy“ Bill and was a steeplejack – was used in long shots. The giant clock scene was filmed on the roof of Western Costume Company. Different sized buildings from 1st to 9th Street in downtown Los Angeles were used, with sets built on their roofs to match the facade of the International Bank Building at Temple and Spring Streets. Lloyd is not as far from the ground as he appears, and the illusion of Lloyd climbing higher and higher up the side of one building was created. The streetscapes seen beyond the sets are noticeably different at different stages of the climb. The film was highly successful and critically hailed. It cemented Lloyd’s status as a major figure in early motion pictures, and it is viewed today as one of the great film comedies.