Peereddi I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Cody One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

leplatypus So far i didn't know the movie, but the moment with Harold grasping the clock of the building is a classic iconic moment of cinema and i couldn't miss that in my movies timeline! Now 80 minutes to get it is maybe a bit too much and if the whole movie is funny, the pace is a bit slow, especially when Harold climbs indeed as he has a lot of adventures between floors. However this movie offers an incredible sight about the 20s downtown LA and actually we see the hero working hard to earn his life. It's crazy how the world has changed because now having a comedy about being clerk is just impossible! But this movie offers a lot of other things besides the climbing and honestly i found this universe much better, romantic and fun than Chaplin!

Bill Slocum It's not Harold Lloyd's best film, nor my personal favorite, nor his snappiest, warmest, or funniest film (different ones, all), but "Safety Last" is the sky's-the-limit icon for Harold Lloyd. You know the shot; now see where it came from.But first, you have to sit through a long introductory section that is by turns inventive and contrived, a taffy pull which drags even as it offers up some inventive gags. Comedy is hard, even sometimes for the audience. But what a payoff.The story is simple: Harold works at a department store and wants to impress his fiancée (Mildred Davis) by buying her fancy things he can't afford as a sign of imaginary wealth. "She's just got to believe that I'm successful – until I am." His campaign works too well: Mildred's mother sends her daughter to snap up Harold before another woman can.I find Mildred Davis the weak link in this film. She plays a thin character, rather unlikable in the way she fixates on status and relishes Harold ordering people around. Another actress might have played her as an amusing gold-digger, or else a zany flapper with suspicions about Harold's game. Davis tended to stick with sweet and simple, and it feels wrong here.There's also the contrivances, another frequent Lloyd qualm of mine. The opening shot is one of those false opens Harold liked to do, in this case a train station set up to look like a gallows. An overhead mail hook resembles a noose and Mildred's father is a minister, so there's a momentary disassociation, except it's the first scene, so it's forgettable immediately. So is a bit where Harold gets stuck in a laundry truck driven by a deaf driver, making him late for work.But amid the whiffs there are hits, like a scene in a crowded trolley and another about dodging a landlady. As the film moves along, it gets much better.To appreciate "Safety Last," I had to realize from the DVD commentary that the film was constructed in reverse. Lloyd and his team (including writer-directors Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor) had their ending all set, and shot it first: Harold on top of that building, hanging on for dear life. The trick for them was figuring out how he gets up there.When I thought of "Safety Last" that way, the contrivances and gags became much more clever and enjoyable, because they are serving a larger end without my realizing it. Why would Harold go up the 12- story Bolton Building? To draw a crowd and impress his girl. Why does he do it himself, when his roommate (Bill Strother) is a high- rise climber? Because Bill is being chased by a cop. Why is Bill being chased by a cop? You get the picture.A real joy of "Safety Last" is seeing members of Lloyd's stock company show up, including Noah Young as the cop, Charles Stevenson and Anna Townsend from "Grandma's Boy" as an ambulance attendant and a customer, and even Roy Brooks, a fixture of many Lloyd shorts, leaning out a window."That's the best one you pulled yet!" Brooks tells Lloyd as he's clinging from the ledge. Is this a call-back to "Never Weaken," a short made two years before where Brooks played Lloyd's pal while Harold climbed another high-rise chasing after Mildred? I can see Harold dotting the i there, even as he also lets his buddy give "Safety Last" its first and most enduring review.Funny how some people talk about Lloyd's genius but then almost sheepishly admit he wasn't quite risking his neck on that building like he appears to, instead of realizing that makes him even more of a genius.

FilmCriticLalitRao If one were to name three musketeers of silent film comedy,actor Harold Lloyd's name would easily be listed with those of actors Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin."Safety Last" is one of Harold Lloyd's most successful comedy films as an actor.Although it has been listed as a comedy film,Safety Last does feature high doses of dramatic content.It is also a love story involving two innocent people who experience a happy end. In many ways,"Safety Last" examines how tough is the life for a villager in a big city.It is a comment on difficult working conditions where one is able to lead a decent life solely through one's wits.Harold is able to outsmart his boss at his workplace as he would like to make it big in life in order to make his girl friend happy.For this reason,he is ready to play all kinds of funny tricks including climbing a 12 storey building.Lastly,Harold Lloyd clutching the hands of a large clock is an image which is etched in most cinéphiles' minds.However,it continues to inspire many brave people all over the world but mocks those fake action sequences where one can easily detect logical as well as technical loopholes.What makes this film legendary is that it happened in 1923, an era when there we no high tech gadgets to help actors with risky scenes.

cricket crockett " . . . soon as I ditch this cop." So yells Bill Strother (playing "The Pal") to Harold Lloyd (in the role of "The Boy") amid the latter's precarious exploration of the OUTSIDE facade of a Los Angeles high-rise during a publicity stunt gone awry. At the height of the "Age of Ballyhoo," during which one could become famous by merely sitting atop a flagpole for a few weeks, a chain of events have forced The Boy to promote his experienced wall-climbing friend in a PR event which will set him up for marriage to "The Girl" (Lloyd's eventual real-life wife, Mildred Davis). The mishaps which have endangered The Boy's future naturally continue, compelling him to make his own dare-devil debut before a throng of thousands. At a time when Mount Everest was as yet unconquered, it certainly is refreshing to see a man "win" a woman through what is arguably a skill and certainly a brave act (as opposed to what Dustin Hoffman's character does at the end of THE GRADUATE, cravenly "stealing" another man's bride from the altar).