Safety Last

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Safety Last

1923,

1h 14m,

Comedy/

Action/

Romance/

Mystery & Thriller

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97%

78 Reviews

Tomatometer

93%

2,500+ Ratings

Popcornmeter

97%

Tomatometer

78 Reviews

93%

Popcornmeter

2,500+ Ratings

A boy (Harold Lloyd) moves to New York City to make enough money to support his loving girlfriend (Mildred Davis), but soon discovers that making it in the big city is harder than it looks. When he hears that a store manager will pay $1,000 to anyone who can draw people to his store, he convinces his friend, the "human fly," (Bill Strother) to climb the building and split the profit with him. But when his pal gets in trouble with the law, he must complete the crazy stunt on his own.

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Critics Consensus

Persuasive enough to give audiences acrophobia when they aren't laughing at Harold Lloyd's antics, Safety Last! is a marvel of visual effects and slapstick comedy.

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Inez Cunningham

Chicago Tribune

Feb 22, 2023

Why [people] should be supposed to find entertainment and not torture in seeing another human on the point of falling to certain death is a mystery to what intelligence I possess. However, there are six reels of it, and it proved vastly entertaining.

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Grace Kingsley

Los Angeles Times

Feb 22, 2023

As for Lloyd, we always knew he was funny, but we never realized how funny until this one. It isn't only that he does funny stunts; his comedy method Itself is perfect of its own original kind.

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P.W. Gallico

New York Daily News

Feb 22, 2023

As photocomic entertainment it is in a class by itself. We have rarely heard people laugh and shriek in a theatre as they did yesterday.

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Matt Brunson

Film Frenzy

Feb 2, 2026

4/4

Long before Safety Last! reaches its exciting climax, it has made its mark as a screen classic.

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Dennis Harvey

48 Hills

Nov 30, 2023

Lloyd is generally considered the most prosaic of the era’s comedic “big three,” lacking Chaplin’s poetry and Keaton’s deadpan genius. But his movies were, and are, great mainstream entertainment...

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Jennie Kermode

Eye for Film

Aug 21, 2023

5/5

There are some brilliant slapstick sequences and there’s also great character work which emphasizes that, for truly skilled actors, spoken dialogue is far from a necessity.

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Ron R

Dec 11, 2018

Think it takes a modern film to truly thrill you? I dare you to watch the climbing sequence of this movie without gasping, shrieking, and straight up screaming. I certainly did. And I enjoyed every perfect second of it.

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Ron W

Oct 26, 2018

This is a real classic comedy of the silent era and well worth hunting out to see it. This is the film where famously, Harold Lloyd climbs the outside of a building and ends up dangling above the street from the fingers of a large clock. While watching this, just bear in mind that Lloyd had lost a thumb and finger some years earlier while he was holding a bomb that went off in his hand. Quite how he ends up on the outside of the building that houses the department store where he works as a fabric salesman is rather convoluted but hardly matters as the comic genius of the piece covers the holes in the plot. Lloyd has a cheery and affable disposition that makes him instantly likeable and endearing. You are literally willing him to succeed as you laugh at his antics as he launches hi madcap plan to gain a prize that will secure his future with the girl he loves.

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Theodore R

May 9, 2017

The best silent comedy, nervewrecking scenes almost stopping your heart.

Theodore P

Apr 11, 2017

Taking a page from Chaplin and Keaton, Lloyd helped create a quintessential romantic comedy with wonderful stunts and slapstick gags.

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Kylo M

Feb 7, 2017

Close to 100 years later, this film is still fresh and funny. The iconic clock scene lives up to the hype. It's crazy to think that special effects weren't really around at this time, so it is impressive to know that Lloyd performed most of his own stunts and had to use tricky camera angles to pull this off. Silent comedy at its best!

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Han R

Jan 5, 2017

Arguably one of the most famous silent comedies, "Safety Last!" spices up its simple plot with the side-splitting gags of Harold Lloyd's everyman persona, before culminating memorably in one of the most suspenseful sequences of its time, the prolonged climb of the Bolton building.

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Fred Newmeyer

Director

Sam Taylor

Director

Harold Lloyd

The Boy

Mildred Davis

The Girl

Bill Strother

The Pal

Noah Young

The Law

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Safety Last: 10 of the Most Daring Stunts of the Silent Era

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Synopsis

A boy (Harold Lloyd) moves to New York City to make enough money to support his loving girlfriend (Mildred Davis), but soon discovers that making it in the big city is harder than it looks. When he hears that a store manager will pay $1,000 to anyone who can draw people to his store, he convinces his friend, the "human fly," (Bill Strother) to climb the building and split the profit with him. But when his pal gets in trouble with the law, he must complete the crazy stunt on his own.

Director: Fred Newmeyer, Sam Taylor
Producer: Hal Roach, Jeffrey Vance, Kevin Brownlow, David Gill
Screenwriter: H. M. Walker, Tim Whelan
Distributor: Continental Home Vídeo [br], Pathé Exchange Inc.
Production Co: Pathé, Hal Roach Studios Inc.
Genre: Comedy, Action, Romance, Mystery & Thriller
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Apr 1, 1923, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Mar 17, 2017
Runtime: 1h 14m
Aspect Ratio: Flat (1.37:1)

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