Written by H M Walker, Jean Havez, Harold Lloyd
Produced by Hal Roach
Duration 73 minutes
Marilyn Monroe’s dress billowing from an air vent in THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH (1955). Elliot and his alien pal on a bike in front of the moon in ET (1982). Fred Astaire swinging from a lamp post in SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (1952). Father Merrin arriving outside the house in THE EXORCIST (1973). Janet Leigh screaming in the shower in PSYCHO (1960).
So what is the most iconic image in motion pictures? And where does Harold Lloyd hanging from a clock face way above a busy street in 1923’s SAFETY LAST! figure? And furthermore, to what extent do people (like me) only know that shot because it was paid tribute to in BACK TO THE FUTURE?
I’d wager that most casual moviegoers have no idea from what movie the Monroe sequence is from, either, let alone the plot of SEVEN YEAR ITCH (which is a fairly amusing mid-level Billy Wilder comedy). And I myself certainly had no idea what SAFETY LAST! was all about, save for the hi-jinks promised by the counterintuitive title, and the fact that a bloke hanging on for dear life in such a precarious situation is unlikely to be taken from a study in neo-realism.
I was familiar with Charlie Chaplin; well, I’ve seen CITY LIGHTS (1931). And I knew Buster Keaton; that is to say, I caught THE GENERAL (1926) on TV one time. But I’d never heard of Harold Lloyd, so wasn’t sure if he was going to have as indelible a screen image as those two silent movie titans.
As it turns out, in SAFTEY LAST! Lloyd is playing a character named ... 'Harold Lloyd'. Just like James Spader plays 'James Ballard' in CRASH (1996) after the source novel’s author, except without the creepy implications of that far more twisted story (JG Ballard was never actually part of an underground cult that sexualised car crashes... as far as we are aware). Anyway, movie Lloyd is earnest, naïve and good-natured – not to mention physically dextrous. We like him.
The plot has Lloyd heading off to "the big city" (Los Angeles?) to find employment, so he can then send for his fiancé to join him when he is successful (she, incidentally, is played by Mildred Davis, who looks exactly like every other silent movie actress I’ve ever seen – or maybe I’ve only ever seen her, who knows.) And from there, it’s a sketch-like series of his farcical escapades in menial work, sprinkled with some mistaken identity, due to Lloyd wanting his visiting sweetheart to believe he has risen higher up the corporate ladder than he really has.
And the movie is pretty funny. There are lots of great sight gags: Harold running onto the back of a truck instead of his train; he and his flatmate jumping under their hung-up coats to hide from their rent-happy landlady. And the title cards are often amusing, too, as a substitute for witty spoken dialogue. Really, SAFETY LAST! is a relentless series of moments designed to make you chuckle. And it’s successful, as well as more than a little charming. It’s basically a live-action cartoon. Plus the clock sequence does not disappoint, managing to be a genuinely suspenseful set piece (although given the choice, I’d take Dr Emmett Brown any day of the week.)
So alright, answer me this: does the world need silent movies back? Was anything better before sound? I guess you didn’t get the mixing problems on movies like Chris Nolan’s INTERSTELLAR and TENET, or have to endure an actor’s voice that you find aurally annoying. There’s an efficiency to the storytelling, an unavoidable and welcome reliance on the ‘show, don't tell’ principle.
And it’s not like every technological advance makes the old thing redundant. Take practical effects vs CGI: it’s now a cliche that filmmakers will boast how much a scene is practical and not computer generated, especially a stunt. (This is a far cry from 1998’s LOST IN SPACE, where the marketing gushed so proudly about the project breaking the record for number of onscreen SFX shots with 750.)
But ultimately, let’s face facts: after THE ARTIST kicked up such a big fuss back in 2011, people didn’t suddenly fly out and start making more silent movies, did they? So what does that tell you?
Four stars out of five.
Valid use of the
word ‘last’? The entire backend of the film is Lloyd
climbing up a building with nothing to stop him falling to his death, so they
weren’t joking when they told us that being safe would not figure high on the agenda.
What would a movie SAFETY FIRST! be about? It would be a lot duller.
Previously: THE LAST DAYS OF AMERICAN CRIME
Next time: LAST NIGHT IN SOHO
Check out my books: Jonathanlastauthor.com
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