Criterion Blu-ray Film Review
Safety Last! (1923) • Blu-ray [Criterion Collection]
When a store clerk organises a contest to climb the outside of a tall building, circumstances force him to make the perilous climb himself.
Amongst 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…