Safety Last! [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Fred Newmeyer, Sam Taylor Fred Newmeyer

Overview

One of the best loved and most recognizable of silent comedian Harold Lloyd's feature films, Safety Last is the ripping tale of an idealistic, bespectacled small-town boy who heads for the big city in hopes of making his friends and family proud. Instead he ends up working in a dry goods store as a humble clerk. Not wanting to disappoint the folks back home, especially his sweetheart, Harold fudges the truth and writes glowing letters of his fabulous exploits. To further impress his beloved, he spends every nickel he earns on lavish gifts for her. As a result, he is nearly destitute and shares a humble apartment with a "human fly," a daredevil who makes money scaling sky scrapers. In need of cash, the youth convinces his roommate to attempt the tallest building in town. Unfortunately, a merry mix-up ensues on the day of the ascent and Harold must climb the obstacle-covered tower himself. This leads him to one of the most infamous and nail-biting scenes in cinema wherein poor Harold ends up clutching the hands of the shaky and badly sprung town clock while the tiny world 12 stories below waits breathlessly to see how he can extricate from his precarious situation. An accomplished athlete and acrobat, Lloyd performed most of the film's stunts himself, including portions of the clock-tower scene (the scene's long shots were filmed with stunt double Bill Strothers, but this was not widely acknowledged until long after Lloyd's death).

Product Details

Release Date:	06/18/2013
UPC:	0715515106511
Original Release:	1923
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[B&W]
Language:	English
Time:	1:13:00
Sales rank:	9,771

Special Features

New, restored 2K digital film transfer; Musical score by composer Carl Davis from 1989, synchronized and restored under his supervision and presented in uncompressed stereo; Alternate score by organist Gaylord Carter from the 1960s, presented in uncompressed monoaural; Audio commentary featuiring film critic Leonard Maltin and director and Harold Lloyd archivist Richard Correll; Introduction by Suzanne Lloyd, Lloyd's granddaughter and the president of Harold Lloyd Entertainment; Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius, a 108-minute documentary from 1989; Three newly restored Lloyd shorts: Take a Chance (1918), Young Mr. Jazz (1919), and His Royal Slyness (1920), with commentary by Correll and film writer John Bengtson; Locations and Effects, a new documentary Bengtson and visual-effects expert Craig Barron; New interview with Davis; ; Plus: ; A booklet featuring an essay by critic Ed Park

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Harold Lloyd	The Boy
Mildred Davis	The Girl
Bill Strother	Pal
Noah Young	Law
Westcott B. Clarke	Floorwalker,The Floorwalker
Anna Townsend	Grandma
Gus Leonard	Office Worker
Charles Stevenson	Ambulance attendant,Ambulance attendant
Helen Gilmore	Customer
Mickey Daniels	The Kid

Technical Credits

Sam Taylor

Hal Roach

Tim Whelan Sr.

Fred Newmeyer	Director
Sam Taylor	Director,Screenwriter
Hal Roach	Producer,Screenwriter
Tim Whelan Sr.	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

Safety Last (1923) pokes fun at the lengths that a 1920s man would go to to be a success, and it's also the movie in which Harold Lloyd's trademark "comedy of thrills" produced the timeless image of Lloyd's dangling precariously from a clock above a busy city street. A formidable athlete, Lloyd mined humor from a relentless series of situational and physical gags involving the efforts of his ambitious sales clerk to make it in the big city and impress his girlfriend back home. The famed climax arrives when Lloyd is forced to scale the high rise department store himself after his "human fly" publicity gambit goes awry. As he hangs off the clock 10 floors above the street, he encounters a new difficulty at every story, turning the climb into a hilarious and breathtaking physical feat. Lloyd performed most of the stunts himself (despite having lost his right thumb and forefinger in an accident) and without trick photography. One of a series of Lloyd feature hits, Safety Last helped him surpass fellow comics Buster Keaton and Charles Chaplin in box-office popularity and become a 1920s icon.

All Movie Guide - Lucia Bozzola