A Century of Film is a series where one film is watched from each year between 1917 and today. This week we go back in time to 1923, and the film Safety Last.
Safety Last begins with a title card describing a character going on a long journey. We then cut to Harold Lloyd, our star, standing behind bars, with what looks like a noose in the distant background. He is speaking to a man in uniform and crying women. Things do not look good for our star, until the women go around the bars and the audience is clued into the fact that something is up. Not to spoil a film from 1923, but Lloyd’s character is not being sent to the gallows, but is instead about to catch a train, and the noose is an object trains used to pass messages, so he can make his fortune in the “big city.” It’s one of the best openings of any film I can think of, not only a classic joke construction, but one that sets the tone, this is a comedy built around a man’s misfortune.
Lloyd’s character is credited as The Boy, though it’s quickly apparent they had no real interest in giving him a character name, as he’s just referred to as Harold Lloyd through the film - a tradition picked up by our closest modern equivalent, Jackie Chan, who tends to play characters named Jackie Chan. He’s trying to get money to buy nice things for his girl – Mildred Davis, credited as “The Girl” – though this is complicated by him merely being a clerk at a chaotic fabric counter at a major department store. Not that she knows that, he buys her jewelry and sends letters telling her he’s now the manager. Naturally, this scheme, like every scheme in the film, inevitably backfires.
Everything backfires, the man can’t sit down without launching into a sequence of jokes, stunt sequences and pratfalls. At times the film can feel a bit like sketch comedy with only the barest amount of plot to connect the gags, but when the gags are good this doesn’t really matter. Whether it’s something very simple like Lloyd watching his food evaporate in front of him, or something very complex like the chaos at the fashion counter when a crowd of women demand the perfect fabric and proceed to liberate Lloyd from his jacket in the process, the gags mostly hold up. Even stuff that seems like it could go very badly for modern audiences works out in an amusing way. Everyone who has ever worked retail can relate to going above and beyond after hours for an indecisive customer, and the sight gag of Lloyd being unable to manage an ever-increasing pile of fabric drills home the awkward comedy of the scene. Even gags that you can see coming somehow never go exactly as you expect, always funnier than the predicted outcome is going to be. Plus, since it’s mostly sight gags, it all holds up, time doesn’t harm a good visual joke.
It was rewarding to know that there is more to Safety Last than the Big Scene, the one on all the posters, the one people associate with silent comedy as much as Chaplin going through the gears or the house falling around Buster Keaton. The clock scene, in other words, the entire reason I picked this as the film for 1923. There’s something special about silent slapstick because of the danger involved. A film made in 2016 with these same sequences would have lots of green-screen, plenty of CGI assists, harnesses, wires and so on. There’s a good reason for that, we don’t actually want our actors to die, and safety is important. In 1923, you had fewer tools with which to protect your cast and fake shots. When Lloyd jumps between cars, he actually jumps between cars, in other words, when he climbs a department store he’s actually climbing, and even if there were definitely safety precautions in place it feels dangerous. This is the same reason that Jackie Chan films were advertised with declarations that he does his own stunts. This is the same reason why Mission Impossible films are often advertised with details of how they tried to kill Tom Cruise this time. Whether old or modern, as much as we don’t want our actors to actually die, we still have a strange desire to have them potentially die. The more ambitious stunt sequences of the era have that risk built into them. The iconic image of Lloyd hanging from a clock is a way to get more people into seats because it’s a daring sequence.
Knowing about it doesn’t actually prepare you for the climb. Even though I assume that there’s some trick photography and hidden safety equipment involved, the scene is still made in 1923 where the options for special effects were limited, and the design of the shots is so well done that it remains incredibly tense. Whenever the camera is on the outside of the building with Lloyd, the street below is also in frame, to emphasize the height involved. The most important thing is that it looks dangerous, and holy crap does it look dangerous. The climb makes up the entire last act of the film, and the clock is the mere midpoint. There are errant birds, pesky mice, slips and bad footing to contend with. Every section has another obstacle for Lloyd to face. Some of the wide shots could be a stunt climber, but Lloyd’s face is also present for the majority of the time, and just having the main actor as a visible part of the sequence really sells the danger. It’s a thrilling sequence, and while the majority of the film is straight up comedy the climb is so incredibly tense that the only laughter is a nervous one.
It’s a good film until you get to the climb, there are plenty of great gags and the joke construction is frequently genius. But the climb is why this film is well remembered today. It’s an unforgettable sequence, and one that I don’t think anyone has really topped in the years since. If something is done well, it ages well, and Safety Last is a film that still works, whether it’s a small joke or a big, seemingly impossible action sequence.
Next time, it’s 1924, and we will take a ride on the Sea Hawk.
