Safety Last!

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.