Safety Last! is my first feature with Lloyd, and I see the appeal. His Glasses Boy is as cute as a button and as animated as a Disney creation. Lloyd seems to mine every moment of Safety Last! for its comic potential, whether he’s trying to get to work on time, waiting on ladies in the fabric department of a department store or climbing the façade of the Bolton Building. His humor is sometimes more like that of the Three Stooges than of Chaplin or Keaton: Jackets get ripped up the back, people get kicked in the butt when they bend over, and witless police are continually outfoxed in pursuit of their suspect. But despite the hooey that calls on us to suspend disbelief when Lloyd takes over his boss’ office and pushes buttons to call assistants, Lloyd’s screen presence has a charm that makes us willing to play along.
Part of the Boy’s charm here is his basic goodness. He wants to bring his girlfriend to the city, so goes off in earnest to make money. He wants to do well at work, help out his friend, and succeed, but he never tries to advance by stepping on others. With his fresh face and sincerity of character, he’s a hard man not to like.
His comedy also has an engaging, agile physicality. We watch him brushing aside pigeons while he clings to the side of a building, and we see him hook his foot through a looped rope and become a human pendulum when he falls. He jumps from a bus and into a car. And even less dramatic moments of his comedy rely on his supple dexterity. At one point, he wraps himself up in a mannequin to get into De Vore’s unobserved, and he then folds himself into a human crab to walk to his post unobserved.
And Safety Last! builds itself into something close to an action thriller in its last, extended skit. The Boy climbs the Bolton Building one story at a time, at each floor expecting his human fly pal, Bill, to replace him. The friend, though, is unrelentingly pursued by the policeman and has to flee at each floor just as the Boy gets there. And the Boy also encounters an obstacle at each floor, from an over-large large ledge to a volleyball net, pigeons, office workers and even a fussy grandmother. And the famous clock. Tension builds steadily as we watch the Boy’s danger increase and his hope of salvation retreat.
Safety Last! is a fun movie. Some of the gags are forced – and even stupid – but that's to be expected in such an intense concentration of humor. The film is nonetheless fun, energetic and far more inventive than many other comedies.
