Line #6 Film/SafetyLast


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4	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/safetylast.png]]
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6	''Safety Last!'' (1923) is a seven-reel silent comedy film from Hal Roach Studios, starring Creator/HaroldLloyd.
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8	Harold Lloyd plays, uh, [[TheDanza Harold Lloyd]], who is a clerk in a department store. He's been telling his girlfriend back home (Mildred Davis) that he's a big success and sending her presents he can't really afford, which causes a problem when she comes to the city to visit him. Harold temporarily saves face by pretending to be the manager of the store, but a more permanent solution soon presents itself when the actual manager says he'll offer $1000[[note]]about $15,700 in 2021[[/note]] to anyone who can come up with a good PublicityStunt to attract attention to the store.
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10	Harold concocts a scheme in which his good friend Bill (Bill Strother), a high-rise worker and "human fly" daredevil, will [[WallCrawl climb up the side of the store building]] for half of the winnings. However, when Bill finds himself having to flee from an angry policeman, poor Harold is left to perform the dangerous stunt himself.
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12	The shot of Lloyd hanging from the clock is the SignatureScene of his career, and graces the cover of Creator/TheCriterionCollection's Blu-ray/DVD set for the film. It's the TropeMaker of StockClockHandHang, and most of the trope's subsequent examples are direct homages.
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14	Now in the PublicDomain in the US as of 2019.
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16	----
17	!!This film provides examples of:
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19	* AllPartOfTheShow: The crowd gathered to watch Harold climb the building believes the increasingly dangerous obstacles he deals with are deliberate theatrics.
20	* BreakingTheFourthWall: Harold gives the viewer an exasperated look while dealing with a fussy customer.
21	* CaptainObvious: The old lady who gives Harold some sage advice as he's climbing the building.
22	--> "Don't you know you might get hurt?"
23	* ConcussionsGetYouHigh: Just as Harold reaches the top of the building, a spinning anemometer on its roof bonks him in the head, leading to him performing a dazed dance on the ledge.
24	* DodgyToupee: A basically random gag in which Lloyd's toupee flips up in one scene.
25	* {{Determinator}}: The policeman really, really, REALLY wants to get the guy who tripped him. Even abandoning his post and duty to watch the crowd to chase him through and up the building.
26	* DramaticIrony: "The idea of working in your shirt sleeves! Think of the shock to your customers — women of culture and refinement." In fact, the entire reason that Harold was working in his shirt sleeves was that his very unladylike customers tore off his jacket while mobbing him.
27	* EarnYourHappyEnding: In spades.
28	* EnemyMine: The angry cop doesn't hesitate to help Bill on pulling a rope to rescue Harold after the clock breaks, but once he's, well, kind of safe, they resume their chase as though nothing has happened.
29	* FakeOutOpening / RevealShot: The opening scene makes it look like an execution is about to unfold. We see Harold behind bars, the gallows waiting in the back, his sobbing relatives and a minister coming to shake his hand. Cut to a shot from a wider angle which reveals the setting to be a train station and the occasion a TrainStationGoodbye.
30	* GreedyJew: Harold buys a chain for his girlfriend from a shifty jeweler with a hooked nose called Silverstein, who constantly wrings his hands in avarice (the accompanying musician(s) shift into Klezmer-type music here, just so we get the point). Harold, embarrassed, starts imitating the man's hand-wringing.
31	* HappyEnding: As was typical for Lloyd.
32	* IrisOut: And Iris In.
33	* KickMePrank: Harold does this to the cop by way of writing "kick me" backwards on a wall in chalk and then managing to press the cop against the wall so that the message rubs onto the back of his uniform. A [[AlcoholHic comical drunk]] then happily complies.
34	* KneelPushTrip: After Harold runs into a cop who happens to come from his hometown, he boasts to Bill about his "pull" with the police and sets up behind the cop while he's on the phone, expecting him to laugh it off. Unfortunately, a second cop has taken his place at the phone by the time Harold talks Bill into going for it and he's angry enough to pursue our heroes for the rest of the film.
35	* LiteralCliffhanger: Takes up most of the third act. Dangling from the clock and other portions of the department store building wasn't quite as dangerous as it looked; clever camera work disguised the fact that there was a rooftop underneath Lloyd.
36	* MaintainTheLie: Harold goes to increasingly desperate measures after his girlfriend, who believes he's a successful manager at the department store, comes to pay him a visit.
37	* PaintingTheMedium: When we get the last glimpse of Harold's buddy evading the cop on the rooftops, he's so far away, that when he calls out to Harold, the title card that speaks for him is printed in very tiny, barely readable letters.
38	* PublicityStunt: The climactic building climb is an attempt by Lloyd's character to drum up publicity for the store he works on.
39	* PunBasedTitle: The title is, of course, a humorous reversal of the common idiom, "safety first."
40	* RoofHopping: The last glimpse of Harold's buddy, who was supposed to make the climb, shows him running across the rooftops, promising to come back when he ditches the cop.
41	* RunningGag: Bill telling Harold he'll have to climb yet another floor, but "I'll be right back as soon as I ditch the cop!"
42	** After he does this for the fourth or fifth time, a frustrated Harold shouts back at him, "[[PrecisionFStrike Go to hell, Bill!]]" (While you obviously can't ''hear'' this, and there was no way they were putting it on a title card, you can just as obviously [[MouthingTheProfanity read it on his lips]].)
43	* SkewedPriorities: After an attacking dog nearly causes Harold to fall off the building, the owner comes over and expresses concern... that Harold almost caused the ''dog'' to fall.
44	* SquirrelsInMyPants: A mouse goes up Harold's pants as he's climbing the building, causing him to dance on the ledge and nearly fall. The crowd below applauds, [[AllPartOfTheShow thinking he's showing off]].
45	* StockClockHandHang: Lloyd's character clutches the hands of a large clock as he dangles from the outside of a skyscraper above moving traffic.
46	* TrainStationGoodbye: The hero and his love interest have one before he leaves for the city.
47	* WallCrawl: Harold uses gaps in the bricks to scale the building, in perhaps the earliest use of this trope in film, or at least the most famous early use.

Context Film / SafetyLast