· Safety Last! · by Fred C. Newmeyer

Harold Lloyd plays a character named Harold Lloyd. He’s a young man who moves to the city and pretends to be a big success in hopes of persuading his sweetheart to marry him. The main event in his series of shenanigans is promoting a stunt in which a man will climb the outside of the 12-story building where he’s employed. A run-in with a policeman prevents the climber from actually attempting the feat, and to save face Harold winds up climbing the building instead.

Oddball Cinema is participating with Charles J. Beatley, Jr. Library in All Alexandria Reads, an annual city-wide program. The theme this year is resilience, and while our main event for this purpose is a Zoom discussion on April 28, we’re featuring movies every Thursday this month reflecting this theme. The main character in tonight’s movie is hilariously resilient, enduring all sorts of setbacks and overcoming all sorts of obstacles in pursuit of his true love.

Resilience is best displayed, however, by the actor himself. Although some shots used a bit of camera trickery to make it look as if he’s higher above the street than he really is, Lloyd nonetheless did a lot of his own stunt work in risky conditions. Furthermore, at one point during production, someone handed Lloyd a bomb which he assumed to be fake. It exploded, blowing off two of his fingers, and he had to complete his climb relying on his eight remaining fingers and a special glove to mask the injury. Like many early actors, he improvised stunts and techniques during filming, often taking risks that would be unimaginable (and illegal) today and enduring physical punishment to achieve his desired effects.

■ Title — Safety Last!
■ Director — Fred C. Newmeyer
■ Cast — Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Bill Strother
■ Unrated, suitable for general audiences
■ ©1923 | 1h 14m | Action, Comedy, Thriller
■ Silent, black and white

■ Available free without ads to Kanopy subscribers (details below):
https://kanopy.com/video/safety-last-1

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