Safety Last!

Directed by Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor, Safety Last! follows Harold Lloyd’s central character as he attempts to enough money in the big city to finally marry his girlfriend (Mildred Davis). It’s a thin premise that is, perhaps unsurprisingly, employed as a springboard for a series of off-the-wall and impressively-conceived comedic interludes and set-pieces, as filmmaker Newmeyer and Taylor deliver an erratically-paced endeavor that benefits substantially from Lloyd’s top-notch, continually compelling performance – with the actor’s often hilarious efforts ultimately going a long way towards smoothing over the picture’s periodic bumps and lulls. And although the movie’s been punctuated with a number of memorable sequences, including a funny bit involving the protagonist’s exasperating encounter with an indecisive customer, Safety Last! builds towards a justifiably iconic climax, in which Lloyd’s character perilously climbs to the top of a skyscraper, that ensures the whole thing concludes on a fairly unforgettable note – with the end result a typically erratic Lloyd vehicle that could probably, despite its positive attributes, have used a little streamlining.

*** out of ****