Criterion Blu-ray Film Review

Safety Last! (1923) • Blu-ray [Criterion Collection]

Barnaby Page
Frame Rated
Published in
7 min readSep 11, 2020

--

AAmongst the greatest pleasures of this Criterion Blu-ray is one never intended, and probably never imagined, by the filmmakers: the chance to see so much detail of downtown Los Angeles as it was nearly a century ago. Not just the buildings, but the crowds, the signs, and the shopfronts. But that’s only one of many attractions on an outstanding Criterion Collection release which does justice to a great comedian and his masterpiece.

Harold Lloyd is today slightly eclipsed by Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton in terms of popular renown, but in his time he was the most successful of the three. Safety Last! shows him to be a skilled filmmaker capable of constructing a complex, sophisticated piece of cinema that works at every level — from the hour-long narrative to three-second gags. (Although it was only his fourth feature, he’d already made around 180 shorter…

--

--

Barnaby Page
Frame Rated

Barnaby is a journalist based in Suffolk, UK. By day he covers science and public policy; by night, film and classical music. He has also been a cinema manager.