American Museum of the Moving Image Screening Harold Lloyd’s High-Flying Claim to Fame From 1923, ‘Safety Last’

From the slimmest of means immortality is achieved: This is a statement that cuts two ways with a film starring Harold Lloyd, “Safety Last” (1923). The movie wasn’t the American comedian’s biggest box office hit — that would come two years later with “The Freshman” — but it is largely how Lloyd is remembered, even by those who can’t place the name or haven’t seen the film. The bright young man dangling from the hand of a clock situated toward the top of a skyscraper is an image pretty much lodged in our collective consciousness.As an exemplar of cinematic daredevilry, Lloyd’s physical purchase on history is slim indeed: a tenuous grip on a few inches of steel is all that separates a life of promise from an unpleasant denouement on the sidewalk below. “Safety Last” is also slim in that it’s predicated on a flimsy premise: that is to say, what a guy won’t do for his gal. As a lobby card for the film had it, Lloyd goes to great lengths “all for the love of a maid!”If memory serves, Homer, Shakespeare, and myriad others employed similar tropes to memorable effect, so perhaps it is better to describe Lloyd’s storyline not as slim but as elemental. Be that as it may, “Safety Last” will be shown this week at the American Museum of the Moving Image as part of its ongoing series, “See It Big: Stunts!,” a run of films celebrating practical effects that also serves as a nod to an award recently established by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science: Stunt Design.The irony attendant to the iconic status of “Safety Last” is that Lloyd only made a handful of what he dubbed “thrill pictures.” His filmography runs close to 200 films, many of the earliest having been lost and a lot of which featured Lloyd’s Charlie Chaplin knock-off, “Lonesome Luke.” That character garnered a significant fanbase, but Lloyd’s ambition had him hankering for something more distinctive. He did so by becoming less distinctive, shucking the hobo-like costume, adopting horn-rimmed glasses, and becoming the “kid that you would meet next door.”Via Wikimedia CommonsWhen we first see the kid in “Safety Last,” we are inclined to wonder what he’s been up to. Harold — the name of the character, here — is framed within an iris shot: He’s behind bars and looking pensive. As the vantage point expands, we see a noose in the background and two bereft women, a girl (the future Mrs. Lloyd, Mildred Davis) and her grandmother (Anna Townsend). A guard approaches, then a priest. Harold marches off to meet his ultimate fate. The movie has barely started.Whereupon the vantage point shifts and we see that Harold is not at the gallows, but standing at the Great Bend train station being huzzahed by its citizens as he heads off to make his name in the big city. It’s a clever scene choreographed with punctilious care: Lloyd and his co-directors, Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor, were keenly attentive to detail. Having pulled the wool over our eyes, they set the record straight as a means of eliciting laughter, yes, but also as a matter of courtesy. There is something very American about their comedic politesse.That quality permeates Lloyd’s oeuvre and is essential to Harold’s ill-advised ascension up the Bolton Building and its 12 stories, a feat he enters into in order to win a cash prize and, yes, the hand of his lady love. Eagle-eyed cineastes have divined the cinematic trickery behind the scene, but that’s not to say Lloyd didn’t put himself in harm’s way: The last 15 minutes of “Safety Last” are nail-biting. That their lead-up is merely an hour’s worth of cannily crafted and sometimes incidental gags should in no way dissuade movie-goers from experiencing an indelible token of popular culture.

American Museum of the Moving Image Screening Harold Lloyd’s High-Flying Claim to Fame From 1923, ‘Safety Last’

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