What are the years you think of when you picture the Golden Era of Hollywood?  There are distinct periods in its development.  One demarcation is between silent films and so-called “talkies,” or what movies were called in the years immediately following the introduction of sound.  If you only went by these two labels, you would have one relatively short period of time, basically the first few decades of the century, and then everything else.  That would not make for a clear “Golden Era,” particularly when you consider the downturn in cinematic production of late, if nothing else in their lack of quality.  To put a finer point on things, one recognized definition of this epoch is between 1927 with the introduction of sound and 1969 when then modern rating system came into use.  I find this clunky, and excludes some great pieces outside of these years, like Safety Last! (1923).  Hopefully this review will get you to not only watch this gem of a silent film, but also think more critically about these labels.

You might think that Harold (Harold Lloyd, credited as “The Boy”) was practicing Safety Last! when we first see him.  He is behind bars and his girlfriend Mildred (Mildred Davis, credited as “The Girl) looks sad, as does her mother.  There is also a serious looking priest, and what seems to be a noose in the background.  Then Harold walks to the others side of the metal barrier.  It turns out this is a train station and the rope implement has a message attached to it for a locomotive passing through without stopping.  So, comedy.  The somber mood is because Harold is leaving for the city to “make good.”  This means that he is going to go ahead of Mildred to get a job, and eventually send for her so that they can get married.  When he arrives in the city, his path to success is not an easy one.  He shares a one room apartment with Bill (Bill Strother, credited as “The Pal”) that they can barely afford between the two of them despite both being employed.  One of the reasons Harold is strapped for cash is because he is sending expensive gifts back to Mildred so as to appear that his career is on an upward trajectory.  The lack of funds causes them to have to hide whenever their landlord comes looking for them.  Their source of employment is tenuous, too, especially for Harold, who is laboring away as a low-level fabric clerk in a department store.  On the first day we see him attempting to get to work, he is inadvertently locked into the back of a towel delivery truck that speeds him away from the store, and thus threatens to make him late to punch the time clock.  This could mean him being fired, and thus he manages to stowaway on an ambulance and make it back to the store before too long.  With some clever manipulation of the time clock, he is at his post with minimal haranguing from his boss, Mr. Stubbs (Westcott Clarke, credited as “The Floorwalker”).  After work, he meets up with Bill, but has to look on while a prank he pulls on a police officer that he believes is a friend from his hometown goes terribly wrong.  They push over the cop, but it turns out to be a different enforcer of the Law (Noah Young).  Harold immediately hides, and Bill is the one who is chased.  Though he escapes by literally climbing up the side of a building, the Law vows to arrest him the next time they meet.  Meanwhile, Mildred gets the latest letter from Harold, with another expensive present, and her mother encourages her daughter to go to him because it is not good for a man to be alone with that kind of money.  She shows up at the department store shortly after Harold is reprimanded by the Floorwalker for allowing himself to become disheveled at work.  His appearance is not his fault, but rather the result of being torn to pieces by a herd of ladies demanding fabric.  Harold quickly spots Mildred, and instead of admitting as to where he actually ranks in the store’s pecking order, decides to continue with the charade that he is in charge.  She also witnesses him emerge from the General Manager’s office after another lecture about his performance, believing it to be where her boyfriend works.  Harold has to wait until the executive leaves to give her a tour, but she accidentally forgets to take her purse with her when they beat a hasty retreat.  In going to retrieve the bag, he overhears the General Manager talking about wanting pay someone $1,000 for an innovative idea to bring more customers into the store.  Having recently seen Bill scale a tall building, he comes up with the idea of having his friend shimmy to the top of the even taller façade that is the department store.  Bill agrees to do so when Harold promises to evenly split the proceeds between them.  The event is set for the next day, and it is covered in all the papers.  This means that the Law knows where to find the perpetrator that had earlier eluded him.  As they approach the store, Bill and Harold spot the Law, and vice versa.  Bill attempts to give the Law the slip, meaning that Harold must climb the exterior instead of the person with the natural ability to do so.  This sequence made me nervous, but it is also fun, and fascinating to see this early cinematic stunt.  With Bill continually telling Harold “one more floor,” Harold makes it to the top with a healthy number of death defying moments along the way.  Mildred arrives mid-climb, and is waiting for him at the top with a kiss, after he is done swinging from the flag pole by one leg, that is.  The end.

The obvious place to take the Catholic portion of this discussion of Safety Last! would be to look at the folly on Harold’s part of lying to Mildred.  Part of me reacted negatively early on to the pressure he put on himself to do right by her.  It is an expectation that looks at the material, instead of whether Harold is a good man.  Luckily, he is, placing her needs before his own.  That is the kind of behavior a Christian husband is called to do, serving a potential spouse as one would serve Christ.  Still, the notion that he has to “make good” stuck with me.  The only good there is in the world comes from God.  When we do good, we are taking part in God’s grace.  If we are good, it is because of God’s grace.  Going against these things usually means sin, and therefore has no part of His Creation, ultimately.  Unfortunately, this is a function of modern society, and there is no thought of this more altruistic thinking in the movie.  This is somewhat surprising given the era and the fact that you see a priest early on in the proceedings.  Again, I am not saying that Harold is a bad person.  He does want to “make good,” but he is trying to do it on his own.  One of the prayers I have been focusing on lately is the “Litany of Trust.”  Indeed, though I had one in my pocket already, I was given another one from the priest today to which I confessed.  One of the lines in the litany says, “From the false security that I have what it takes/ Deliver me, Jesus.”  It is “false security” because, without God, when what we have is easily taken away from us, it can do a number on us.  Instead, we need to keep our face to God.  This way, we do not have to climb buildings.

I wholeheartedly recommend Safety Last!  I say this even if you find silent films to be annoying.  These days, people watch certain movies just for the action.  This is of a similar vein, but I would submit to you that it is much more entertaining.