Safety Last (1923)

Charlie Chaplin is famous for his athletic body movements that typified the Tramp character. What Harold Lloyd does, is take the energy and athletic nature, and creates a more relatable and simple character, an everyday-man who is forced to pretend that he is well off in the city to his family which is in the Great Bend. There are few close-ups in a Chaplin film but Harold uses a good degree of closeups and makes the character more relatable and connectable.

His face and eyes have a particular charm and attraction which convey his feelings really greatly. His face when he has to spend the money he has for his lunch, to get a chain for his lover or his whole reaction in the sequence when his lover come to the store he works in and he has to act as if he is in a higher position are extremely brilliant.

The film also knows where to place the camera. The iconic building climbing sequence, has a particular camera position (seen in the photo above) which it keeps returning to after going on a particular change of shot (usually to capture the other actions taking place) and returns back and continues capturing his ascent and it simply tilts up rather than showing the climb by a cut. It cuts only after he climbs the existing floor. The effect created by this is extremely different and fear-quenching than to simply showing his ascent by a cut.

The film really shows its age in the way editing is used. The editing is actually properly used, for example in a scene where he buys a chain. As he spends the amount needed to buy a chain for his lover (a portion of which he had first saved for his lunch), the food in the plate begins disappearing right when he spends the amount he had saved for his lunch. The writing in the film is airtight and very natural. Take the sequence where the lover comes to meet the Harold Lloyd character. She wishes to see his room; “General manager”.

He quickly takes her in right when the GM is out. A range of comic issues occur. Right after they get out, she tells him she forgot the purse inside. As he goes back, he feels very tensed and delays going in. That is when he hears about the opportunity which leads to the finale building climbing contest. Another one is an incident which takes place early on in the film which has ramifications for the hero during the finale building climbing contest.

What’s really fascinating about the lead character is how despite all the hardships he faces in the city; he doesn’t stop playing the role of a silent film character and continues his living and actions specifically. Even during the great building climb, he is more focused on getting to the nearest from where his friend promised he’d help him, and never once thinks about how he could get all the reward if single handedly completes the climb. The innocence he displays is matched by the innocence of his lover, who naively (in a good way) believes him.

Something very interesting was the way Lloyd’s boss in the film talks about their advertising for their company. He says that their “exploitation” isn’t reaping the benefits that it has to. This was very interesting as it now frames the struggles of Lloyd in the film as a critique of capitalistic society. In order to be with the one, he really loves, he has to risk his life and perform the daredevil stunt of climbing a building as the onlookers look and enjoy the hell out of it. In one scene, he is complained about in the office for not wearing a coat (which got removed in the stampede caused by the woman customers due to a sale) and is reprimanded for thinking about wearing only a shirt in a store which caters to sophisticated women.

It is interesting to think that such a film, made 100 years ago still would probably run great because of how relatable the character is. Hopefully cinema has a similar revival.