NZIFF Classic Film Review: "Safety Last!" (1923) and "An Eastern Westerner" (1920).

With Safety Last, "You're Going to Explode With "Safety Laughs" when You see This Fun Bomb." This 1923 American silent romantic comedy film directed by Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor, and written by Jean Havez and Harold Lloyd. A boy moves to New York City to make enough money to support his loving girlfriend, but soon discovers that making it in the big city is harder than it looks. When he hears that a store manager will pay $1,000 to anyone who can draw people to his store, he convinces his friend, the "human fly," to climb the building and split the profit with him. But when his pal gets in trouble with the law, he must complete the crazy stunt on his own.

One of the most iconic moments in the silent era, and cinema, was achieved with a certain amount of film trickery. Lloyd first tested the safety precautions for the clock stunt by dropping a dummy onto the mattress below. The dummy bounced off and plummeted to the street below. Lloyd performed most of his own stuntwork, but a circus performer was used when The Boy hangs by a rope, and a stunt double – sometimes Strother, who played "Limpy." In the television documentary, Hollywood (1980), Stuntman Harvey Parry revealed for the first time that Lloyd was not as far from the ground as he appears. The building on which he climbs was actually a fake wall constructed on the roof of the International Bank Building, at Temple and Spring Streets, and skillfully photographed to maintain the illusion. Parry also revealed that he doubled for Lloyd in the long shots of him climbing the building in the distance. Up until then, even the Time-Life version of the film that was aired on PBS contained an opening title declaring that Lloyd climbed the building himself and without the use of a stuntman or trick photography. The stuntman chose to suppress this information until Lloyd's death, and yet, he did not want to detract from the danger of Lloyd's actual stunt work. The stunt did not offer much of a safety net, and there was the risk he could have tumbled off. The film proved highly successful when first released, and it cemented Lloyd's status as a major figure in early motion pictures. It is viewed today as one of the great film comedies. In 1994, the Library of Congress added the film to its National Film Registry. The film is included among the American Film Institute's 1998 and 2007 lists of AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies, 2000 list of the 500 movies nominated for the Top 100 Funniest American Movies, and 2006 list of the 50 Greatest Comedies Of All Time.

The film stars Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Bill Strother, Noah Young, and Westcott Clarke. Spectacular performances were given by the cast, especially Mr Lloyd who performed one of the greatest stunts in cinema history. The spectacle was comedic, terrifying and awe-inspiring all at once.

Safety Last! is a treasure that still stands as one of the greatest comedies ever made.

Simon says Safety Last! receives:

Hal Roach presents Harold Lloyd in An Eastern Westerner. This 1920 American short comedy film directed by Roach, and written by Frank Terry and H.M. Walker. Blase eastern boy is shipped off to a ranch in the 'wild west ' by his father.

Throughout his career, Lloyd performed most of his own stuntwork. In 1919, shortly before this film was made, Lloyd was handed what he thought was a "prop" bomb, which he lit with his cigarette. It turned out to be real and exploded, blowing off Lloyd's right thumb and index finger, and putting him in the hospital for months. When he recovered, he went back to making movies, the Goldwyn family had a flesh-coloured prosthetic glove made for him so that he could continue his movie work and, while on screen, hide his damaged right hand. He did his stunts in this film and Feet First (1930), dangling from ledges, clocks and windows, using only eight fingers. In many scenes in this movie, you will note that Lloyd's right hand is deliberately not being used. Furthermore, with some of the stunts Lloyd performs, it's difficult to tell that he is handicapped at all.

The film stars Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Noah Young, Sammy Brooks, and Wallace Howe. Solid performances were given by the cast, especially from Lloyd as a naïve character who just wants to fit in the American west. Lloyd, along with Chaplin and Keaton, perfectly embodied the can-do energy of the 1920s, and few things are quite as funny as his bespectacled, apple-pie face twisted by a panic that was always justified. Lloyd's performances, including this one, were prose, where Keaton's were poems. But gag for gag, Lloyd was the funniest screen comic of his time.

An Eastern Westerner is Lloyd's silent film satire of the American west, not quite one of his best-remembered and well-crafted films, as well as one of his most successful effort. Mr. Lloyd could be funny playing an undisturbed mummy. Simply this: An Eastern Westerner is not so funny as earlier of the comedian's adventures. The plot is a cliche now, but at the time must have felt fresh. And even though modern viewers have seen its like perhaps dozens of times, it somehow does little to diminish the film's charm. This is a regular Harold Lloyd strip of fun, which is made all the more hilarious by introducing something like suspense in the sequences on the football field. In a comedy of emulation, idolizing and popularity, the flimsy mannequins of maleness stand out as Lloyd gives the old cowboy try to becoming a cowboy. Flawlessly executed and edited for maximum impact, the gags have timepiece precision, but Lloyd always sells his mishaps as things that just kind of happen to his character works because it keeps viewers rooting for its hero. It matriculates enough to earn a passing grade. Rarely less than wonderfully entertaining and involving. A treasure that still stands as one of the greatest comedies ever made.

Simon says An Eastern Westerner receives:

Also, see my NZIFF review for Julieta.