Excellent but underrated film

As Good As It Gets

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I've only seen one other work by Harold Lloyd and that was a short. "Safety Last!" proves that he was able to hold his own in company with Chaplin and Keaton, at least in the creativity he demonstrated by providing all the clever sight gags employed in this film. It starts right with the opening scene with that 'noose' ominously swinging in a background that calls to mind a prison scene, but then it dissolves into something entirely different. I also got a kick out of the 'hanging coat' routine by Lloyd and roommate Billy (Bill Strother) when the landlady came calling. With films going all the way back to the Twenties, it's tough not to marvel at what things cost a century ago. How about that overdue rent of fourteen dollars after two weeks! Or The Boy's fifteen bucks for six days pay at the DeVore Department Store. That kind of puts a businessman's lunch for fifty cents into perspective when you think about it.Ordinarily, pratfalls and slapstick don't appeal to me, but when you go this far back in time and see some of the origins of comedy, it can be very entertaining. And when you get to the building climbing scenes and the daring swings twelve floors above the pavement, you begin to admire how film makers pulled off stunts like that without the benefit of CGI. Obviously camera tricks were involved in some manner, but a lot of it makes you wonder 'How did they do that'? Maybe they all used some of that Johnson's Nerve Tonic from the Acme Drug Company.It's kind of uncanny how movie goers still thrill to the antics of someone defying gravity and other various laws of nature like the ones employed by Harold Lloyd in this picture. Just think about the clock swing and the multiple one handed grabs he made on the ledge of the high rise. The movie I saw just before this one was this year's "Tomb Raider" with Alicia Vikander in the title role, and she simulated all those same kinds of thrills in an appropriately more dangerous twenty first century setting. With all the advances in film making and technology, it seems like the folks who make movies today always go back to the industry's roots.

I'm not an expert on the silent era by any means, but I have to say, this seems like a must-see movie for those who are interested in this period of filmmaking. It includes the iconic moment of Harold Lloyd dangling from a clock face many stories off the ground, and also many wonderful sight gags and a cute story.We see Lloyd accidentally getting on a horse-drawn ice wagon instead of the train in the beginning, as he goes off to the city to earn enough money to get married to his sweetheart. We see him and his buddy putting their coats on, hanging themselves up on hooks, and pulling their legs up out of sight to avoid the landlady who is looking for rent in a brilliant scene. He gets a job as a salesman, and we see him handle a crowd of women all going berserk over a fabric sale in all sorts of inventive ways.The scenes of him climbing perilously up a building wall take place over the final 20 minutes of the film, and has him dodging nuts dumped out by a child, being mobbed by pigeons, being hit with a net from above and a giant wooden beam for the side before reaching the clock face. He then hangs from the clock hands in a scene that is both funny and thrilling, since you know it's real, and the framing of the scene is absolutely perfect. As he ascends he'll also dangle from a rope, have a mouse crawl up his leg, and walk precipitously on the edge of a couple of ledges.You're not going to be laughing out loud, but Lloyd is likable and charming, and you will probably marvel at his inventiveness, as well as the danger in performing the climbing stunt, which he did himself for the most part, with nothing but a mattress a few stories below (off-screen) for safety. It was 'safety last' in the real sense as well! Definitely worth seeing if you get a chance.

I've seen fair amount of silent comedies starring Charlie Chaplin which any given day will take the top three spots on my favourite silent films & I've seen a handful of Buster Keaton's works as well which are full of technical innovations & exquisite use of dry humour which I admire very much. However, Safety Last is my first stint with features starring Harold Lloyd & I'm kind of kicking myself right now for not having checked out more of his films even when he has been the most prolific of these three iconic figures of cinema.Safety Last tells the story of a young man who is moving to the big city to find success & promises to send for his girlfriend once he is financially stable so that they can get married. But life in the big town is difficult & our boy is feeling the heat until he overhears his boss planning to give $1000 to anyone who can come up with an idea that would bring a crowd in front of their store. Promising to split the reward in half, he asks his roommate to climb to the top of his store building in a publicity stunt but a series of circumstances ultimately force him to make the climb himself.Wonderfully directed, cleverly scripted, crisply photographed, tightly edited & nicely scored, the film also boasts some truly memorable moments of the silent film era & is hilarious from start to finish. Harold Lloyd may not have the unparalleled charisma of Chaplin or the deadpan expressions of Keaton but he manages to make his character work solely on his acting skills & delivers an outstanding performance. On an overall scale, Safety Last is an ingeniously crafted, influential, unforgettable & significant masterpiece of its time that hasn't aged a day and I just can't wait to check out more of Lloyd's works. Highly recommended.

The Boy (Harold Lloyd) leaves Great Bend for the big city vowing to return to marry Mildred once he makes good. Months later, he is rooming with Limpy Bill (Bill Strother) with a lowly fabric salesman job at the DeVore Department Store. He writes constantly to Mildred but is lying to her about his success. One Saturday after closing at 1pm, he runs into an old friend Jim Taylor from Great Bend who is now a city policeman. He gets Bill to play a trick on Jim but it turns out to be another policeman. Bill has to make a run for it by climbing up the side of a building. (That's one crazy stunt.) Meanwhile back home, the mother thinks that The Boy with so much money in the big city could get up to no good and convinces Mildred to make a surprise visit. The store is wild with a sale as The Boy pretends to be the manager. He is called into the general manager's office following a complaint. Coming out of the office, Mildred assumes that he is the actual general manager. He overhears the general manager offering $1000 to anyone with an original idea to attract a crowd to the store. He offers $500 to Bill to climb the building. The cop suspects it's the same guy who got away from him and stakes out the event. The Boy is forced to start climbing. (There is an even bigger real climb plus a lot of in-camera effects.)Of course, there is the climb up the building with the clock. It is an iconic scene of the silent movie era. The story works well too. The Boy is a guy who does lie and scheme. He is not strictly a nice boy and in that sense, he reminds me of Mr Bean. However it is the climb up the buildings that is so awe inspiring. First off, there is Bill Strother who plays Limpy Bill. He's a human fly who really climbs the buildings. Then Harold Lloyd made the in-camera effects where he is a couple of stories up. The clock climb is so convincing that sometimes one could forget the effects and truly feel the vertigo. That's the genius of Harold Lloyd.