Safety Last! (1923)

Calificación de los usuarios:

8.4/10   

Directors:

Fred C. Newmeyer
Sam Taylor

Escritores:

Hal Roach (story)
Sam Taylor (story)

Fecha de Lanzamiento:

1 abril 1923 (USA)

Género:

Acción | Comedia | Familia | Romance

Plot:

When a store clerk organizes a contest to climb the outside of a tall building, circumstances force him to make the perilous climb himself.

Plot Keywords:

Human Fly | Stunt | Clock | Department Store | Ledge

Premios:

1 win

Comentarios de los usuarios:

A Climb to Remember

Reparto

Harold Lloyd	...	The Boy
Mildred Davis	...	The Girl
Bill Strother	...	The Pal
Noah Young	...	The Law
Westcott Clarke	...	The Floorwalker (Mr. Stubbs) (as Westcott B. Clarke)

También conocida como:

El hombre mosca (Spain) [es]

Duración:

73 min

País:

USA

Idioma:

Inglés

Color:

Negro y Blanco

Relación de Aspecto:

1.33 : 1

Sonido:

Silent

Clasificación:

Australia:G | Sweden:Btl

Locaciones de Filmación:

Brockman Building - 500 7th Street, Downtown, Los Angeles, California, USA

Compañía:

Hal Roach Studios

Trivialidades:

A stuntman revealed for the first time in the television documentary, "Hollywood" (1980), that Harold Lloyd actually climbed a fake building facade that was constructed over another building's rooftop, positioned so the camera angle could capture the street scene below. The stuntman also revealed that he doubled for Lloyd in the long shots of him climbing the building in the distance. Up until then, even the Time-Life version of Safety Last! (1923) that was aired on PBS contained an opening title declaring that Harold Lloyd climbed the building himself and without the use of a stuntman or trick photography. The stuntman stated that he chose to suppress this information until Lloyd's death, and yet, he did not want to detract from the danger of Lloyd's actual stunt work. Lloyd performed the majority of the stunts himself on the rigged facade over a small platform, which was built near the rooftop's edge and still had to be raised a great height to get the proper street perspective for the camera. The size of the platform did not offer much of a safety net, and had Lloyd fallen, there was the risk he could have tumbled off the platform.

Errores:

Errores que Revelan: When "the boy" receives his paycheck from the store employee, he opens it to see his pay stub, and on it is the name "Harold Lloyd" which is the name of the actor, but is not supposed to be the name of the character. The character, as in most of his films, is only supposed to be known as "the boy". It is the only incident in Harold Lloyd's entire film career in which he plays a character using his true name. The scene was edited in without Lloyds knowledge, and didn't become aware of it until the movie was complete.

Conexiones de Película:

Referenced in "Animaniacs: Guardin' in the Garden/Plane Pals (#1.22)" (1993)

A Climb to Remember

It has truly said that while THE FRESHMAN, or SPEEDY, or THE KID BROTHER, are better films, SAFETY LAST is the film that everyone who never saw a Harold Lloyd comedy recalls. That is because in one moment on the screen he engraved himself forever into the minds of movie lovers (something, oddly enough, Chaplin and Keanton never quite did in a single moment of film). Lloyd, of course, became immortal for being the man suspended from the clock of the building he was climbing in the concluding half hour of this wonderful comedy. There is more to the film than that of course. Harold, here in love with his home town girlfriend Mildred Davis (who was his wife in real life), has sacrificed money to buy her jewelry, and has been sending her letters lying about his business success. He claims he is a bigwig at the department store he is a clerk in. Actually he is constantly in hot water with the pompous floor walker, Mr. Stubbs (Westcott Clarke). After he sends a second gift to Mildred she decides to join him in the city. He manages to pass himself off as the store's general manager (don't ask - you have to see how he does it). But she wants to get married now - he's making enough supposedly for a house. His best friend is a human fly (Bill Strother), so Harold proposes to the actual general manager a publicity stunt wherein a mystery man will climb the department store facade (15 stories). Unfortunately, Police Officer Noah Young has a grudge against Strother, and keeps preventing him from climbing. So Harold has to climb up the side - with Strother promising to take over at the right moment once he shakes off Young.

Although Chaplin and Keaton's physical comedy included dangers to them (Keaton and the water fall in OUR HOSPITALITY, for example), the climb up the store's facade is considered in a class by itself. Certainly it is one of the few comedy stunts that have been taken apart and analyzed over the years (even when we know how it was done, it still impresses us). The stunt got a life of it's own, beyond the famous clock photograph, because the film's theme is the success theme in American business life. Harold wants to make it in business, and he's just a down-trodden clerk. To make it rich, and to get his girl, he has to risk all on a $1,000.00 gamble. He does in the end, with his "climbing" having been cleverly compared to "climbing" the business ladder or getting ahead in America. When he seems to retreat at one point some of the onlookers shake their heads and point upward. Once he is on his route to success, he can't turn back.

The film is more fun than that particularly good interpretation makes it sound. It deserves a 10 for it's success at remaining a humorous and lasting peace of cinematic comic art, and a fitting monument to that comedy master Harold Lloyd.