ZapTown

[Correlating with the Indianapolis Museum of Art's 2010 Winter Nights Film Series, ZapTown will be publishing essays each week on the films that will be shown in the series.  The museum will be presenting the final event of the series with a double feature: Safety Last with One Week and a live score performed by the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra on Friday, February 25. The show starts at 7 p.m. - $30 Public/ $25 for Members and $10 for students with ID. For a full schedule, visit the IMA's website (http://www.imamuseum.org/toby) or our Lead Story on The Toby (http://www.zaptownmag.com/2009/12/lets-go-out-to-the-movies-the-toby - film schedule is located at the bottom of the article).]

Past Essays on ZapTown:

The Blue Angel
Nashville
Arsenic And Old Lace
Touch of Evil
The Dirty Dozen
The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg
The Last Picture Show

Though Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton are the most common names among silent screen comedians, Harold Lloyd ranks along with them as one of the most popular and influential of the era.  Lloyd became known for his go-getting “Glasses Character” that somehow always ends up participating in elaborate chase sequences or performing feats of daring do, and no daring feat is more indelible than of Lloyd hanging from the face of a clock in Safety Last! Chances are, even those who haven’t seen the movie are familiar with Lloyd’s bespectacled hero clinging to the clock hands while the clock-face tips precariously away from the building threatening to give way under his weight.  This iconic film stunt earned Lloyd the nickname “the King of Daredevil Comedy.” [cite 1]

The clock stunt was inspired by Bill Strothers’ human fly act.  While walking in Los Angeles one day, Lloyd came across Strothers climbing a building and was so impressed, that, along with using the stunt in the movie, he put Strothers under contract with Hal Roach Studios and cast him in Safety Last! as Limpy Bill, the roommate. [cite 2]  The famous climb up the twelve-story building thrilled audiences and was one he attempted to replicate in Feet First (1930), one of his few talkies. [cite 3]  This legendary stunt has also been referenced in numerous movies from 1920s-set Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) to such as Look Who’s Talking (1989) to international films such as Finland’s Pekka ja Patka neekereina (1960). [cite 4]

Lloyd was one of the most prolific movie stars of his era, making 178 movies between 1915 and 1932, and just fewer than 200 his entire career.  He starred in 66 films as the character Lonesome Luke, a character loosely based around Charlie Chaplin’s little tramp character, before creating his “Glasses Character” seen in Safety Last! This character, usually credited as “The Boy,” is the character featured in his most memorable films such as Girl Shy (1924) and The Freshman (1925). [cite 5]  The young, naïve, but optimistic young man seemed to strike a chord with the 1920s audience.  In fact, his “Glasses Character” became so popular that some trade papers hyped his films with the tag line: “It’s a Lloyd film – that’s enough.” [cite 6]

Even though his film career slowed as talkies began to take over the movie production business, Lloyd had already established himself as an icon of the era.  Though he had branched out to make other types of movies, such as a dark political comedy, The Cat’s Paw (1934), and even a screwball comedy, The Milky Way (1936), he will always be known as the thrill comedian performing his insane movie stunts.  None will ever be more recognizable than his clock stunt in Safety Last!

Works cited:

[1,3] Dirks, T. (2009).  “Safety Last! review.”  Filmsite.Org. http://www.filmsite.org/safe.html. Last
accessed on February 24, 2010.

[2, 5-6] Feaster, F.  (2009.)  “Safety Last!”  TCM Turner Classic Movies. http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article.jsp?cid=23994&mainArticleId=107921.  Last accessed on February 24, 2010.

[4] Safety Last! (2010).  Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0014429/movieconnections.  Last accessed on February 24, 2010.