O Homem Mosca

Wiry, athletic, bespectacled Harold Lloyd may rank third after Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton in "silent age" comedy polls, but when it comes to perilous, pulse-racing, gravity-defying stuntwork, he's the "King of the World!"

The aptly-titled "Safety Last" is without a doubt Lloyd's signature film. The indelible still taken of Harold dangling from the minute-hand of that Big Ben-looking clock is definitive silent screen imagery. A shame too for it is only one classic moment from a tireless legacy of work that is too often overlooked.

Isn't it amazing that despite knowing the outcome of this movie, knowing that Lloyd survived all these crazy stunts, your heart still skips a beat every time he scales that 12-story building, floor by floor, encountering every obstacle imaginable...or unimaginable? Those pesky pigeons, the mouse, the flagpole, the painters, the rope, the mad dog and, of course, the clock. What adds to the intrigue is knowing he did his own stunts, that he had lost fingers prior to this filming in another movie mishap, that there were no safety nets underneath, and that there was no trick photography used. I say Harold deserves a more prominent place in movie history, suffering for his art as no other artist has.

The plot leading up to his daredevil antics is fairly pat but sprayed throughout with inventive sight gags. Harold plays your simple, hapless, small-town 'everyman' who goes to the BIG city to seek fame and fortune, leaving his true love (played by Mildred Davis, his real-life wife) at home until he's makes it. Fresh off the bus, he eventually manages to scrape up a job as a clerk in a department store, a job that takes him nowhere fast. To save face, he keeps sending expensive trinkets back home that indicate otherwise. Convinced that he has indeed made it, she heads off to the BIG city to join him, much to his chagrin. Desperate to earn quick cash before she discovers the truth, he takes his boss up on an offer and works up a publicity ruse to drum up sales for the store.

The rest is classic Lloyd. Wearing his trademark straw hat and horn-rimmed glasses, the meek mouse suddenly turns into Mighty Mouse as our boy, through a series of mishaps, literally moves up in the world, scaling heights even he never dreamed of!

All's well, of course, that ends well, as we've been saying for centuries. Sure, we know how things ended back in the good ol' days, but isn't it great to know that when Harold got the girl, he STAYED with the girl? In real life, Harold and Mildred remained sweethearts for over 45 years.

Highly recommended for those who want to see more of this genius's amazing work is "Kid Brother" and "The Freshman." For me, this guy still provides one heck of an "E" ticket rollercoaster ride.

I found much of the building climbing scene of this movie unwatchable. Not because it's poorly done, but because it's too well done. A certain amount of doubt in my mind about exactly how many of the shots are faked, and how many are definitely Harold Lloyd (distant shots are apparently a double, but many hanging-from ledges shots are close up shots of Lloyd) meant that the palms of my hands were sweating while I watched it, and I felt sizable relief when he finally makes it to the top. The pre-amble to the climb is not really that wonderful, but the climb makes it all worthwhile. Interesting to compare this movie to a modern effects movie like Starship Troopers. Give me Safety Last any day.

One of the best contructed full-length comedies of the twenties. Harold Lloyd was not as outrageously inventive as Chaplin, nor as sentimental. His style was a kind of minimalist one, taking a simple idea -- say, being a hasseled salesman in a clothing store and needing desperately to become a success -- and building on that small situation until, by the hilarious climax, he finds himself swinging from the bent minute hand of an oversized clock on the side of a building many stories above the street. (Human flies were popular around this time, as were flagpole sitters and goldfish eaters.) When a mouse crawls up the leg of his trousers, not only does Loyd go through a sort of break dance trying to get rid of it but when he finally does shake it out, the mouse falls down the wall of the building and in the process removes a toupee from a spectator peering out of a lower window. All of this without matte work. Not to say that the earlier scenes in the store aren't extremely amusing, because they are. Loyd had a very mobile face and like most silent comedians a deft physical manner. He makes a splendidly fawning salesman. A very funny movie indeed, and thrilling as well. Any five minutes of the climax, taken at random, makes one dizzier than whole sections of Clint Eastwood or Sylvester Stallone hanging around the Eiger or elsewhere in the Alps. Somehow, Loyd managed to make a self-deprecatory joke out of his athletic skill, while nowadays stars use what amount of it they have as an opportunity to show off their bravery and, when possible, their bulging muscles. Let's hear it for the silents.

Harold Lloyd is "The Boy" who travels to the big city to "make good" so he can send for his girl (Mildred Davis as Mildred) and marry her. But Harold is just a lowly clerk at a department store. He does without meals and even has to dodge the landlady so that he can buy expensive jewelry and send it back home to Mildred and make her think he is a success until he can find some real achievement. But the ruse backfires when Mildred's mother convinces her that it is dangerous for a young man to have so much money in the big city and also be alone. Thus she shows up unannounced at the department store one day and Harold has to convince her that he is someone of importance AND not get fired in the process. Complications ensue.

Harold Lloyd, one of the three great silent comics along with Chaplin and Keaton, carved out a niche that was distinct from the others in that he was always working from within the system where Chaplin and Keaton were either outcasts or rebels. Here he shows that success is possible and laudable, but it is often done in small and even reluctant steps. My favorite scene isn't the long one where he climbs the side of the building. Instead my favorite is where Harold shows Mildred around the office of the store's general manager - she believes that is who he is - and manages to sidestep every potentially catastrophic situation with great ingenuity.

Something that others may or may not appreciate but that I always enjoyed is that, since much of this is taking place in a 1920s department store, there is a real opportunity to see the advertised high fashions of the day versus what average people are wearing. And also there is perhaps a goof shown. When Lloyd does his famous climb up the side of a building you can clearly see another tall building with a sign saying "Blackstone's - California's Finest Store". There really was such a building, in Los Angeles. Though the film never says what big city Harold has traveled to in order to seek his fortune, his character is supposed to be from Indiana. That would be quite a trip in 1923 when Chicago is much closer. Just something weird that I happened to notice.

If you are just getting familiar with Lloyd I'd start with this one. It really demonstrates everything he was good at.

Safety Last was funny pretty much throughout its entirety. The scene where Harold and his roommate hide in their coats (you'd have to see it to know what I'm talking about) got an enormous laugh which lasted for a long time, followed by some applause. I remember that there was a slow section, lasting about 5 minutes, after Harold's fiancee arrived in the city, but other than that, this film was consistently hilarious.

And then during the building climbing scene, there were so many laughs and gasps, applause, and shouts ("OH MY GOD!") coming from the audience. It was probably the single most hair-raising scene that I or most of the other people in the theater had ever seen. And the climb, which lasts, I believe, 12 stories, should have gotten old. But it never came close to getting old. Each joke was masterful.

After having seen the film, I was unfairly comparing it to the silent film that I had seen the previous week at a theater with live piano: Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr. Well, nothing is really comparable to that film. I consider it the funniest film I've ever seen. I was planning to give Safety Last a 9/10, but after some thought, I realized that I laughed a lot harder and more at this film than 90% of the other comedies I've seen. At least 90%, but probably much more. I have to give this a 10/10. This film really should be on DVD, or at least VHS. Harold Lloyd shouldn't be as forgotten as he is.