O Homem Mosca

This is an excellent comedy in the best tradition of the silent classics. It is pleasant and lively, with a story revolving around silly predicaments combined with a good assortment of gags, and it all leads up to a terrific finale that combines humor with excitement and suspense.

Harold Lloyd has an ideal role as an earnest young man trying to make good in the big city so that he can impress his girlfriend. His antics in the department store are very amusing - in this part, it's hard not to be reminded of "Are You Being Served?" - there is even Stubbs the floorwalker fussing endlessly over trivial details. The situation is built up nicely until we get to the famous climbing scene that climaxes everything. This climax is one of the best sequences of its kind, set up very carefully and executed skillfully with lots of good detail.

Most fans of silent comedies should find "Safety Last" to be very enjoyable. And even those who do not normally watch silent comedy should be able to appreciate its masterful and thoroughly entertaining conclusion.

In 1922, the country boy Harold says goodbye to his mother and his girlfriend Mildred in the train station and leaves Great Bend expecting to be successful in the big city. Harold promises to Mildred to get married with her as soon as he "make good".

Harold shares a room with his friend "Limpy" Bill and he finally gets a job as salesman in the De Vore Department Store. However, he pawns Bill's phonograph, buys a lavaliere and writes to Mildred telling that he is a manager of De Vore.

One day, Harold sees an old friend from Great Bend that is a policeman and when he meets his friend Bill, he asks Bill to push the policeman over him and make him fall down. However Bill pushes the wrong policeman that chases him, but he escapes climbing up a building.

Out of the blue, Mildred is convinced by her mother to visit Harold without previous notice and he pretends to be the manager of De Vore. When Harold overhears the general manager telling that he would give one thousand dollars to to anyone that could promote De Vore attracting people to the department store, he offers five hundred dollars to Bill to climb up the Bolton Building. However things go wrong when the angry policeman decides to check whether the mystery man that will climb up the building is the one who pushed him over on the floor.

"Safety Last!" is one of the funniest comedies ever and the joke begins with the title that plays with the expression Safety First! Another day I saw "Hugo" and Martin Scorcese pays a tribute to "Safety Last!" showing the scene of Harold Lloyd hanging from the Bolton Building clock and I have decided to see this film again.

If Harold Lloyd himself or a stuntman climbed the building, it does not matter. The breathless scene is among the most known in the cinema history and "Safety Last!" is a must-see film for any generation. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "O Homem Mosca" ("The Fly Man")

In the era of silent comedies, the man who was 2nd only to Charlie Chaplin was not Buster Keaton, but Harold Lloyd. Though he has since been mostly forgotten, except by film historians (who reluctantly list him automatically as the third great silent comedian behind Keaton and Chaplin), Lloyd's is still remembered for his clock sequence in Safety Last. More recently, this has been reproduced in "Back to the Future" and "Shanghai Knights".

However, it is not just the skyscraper sequence that makes this film special. Harold portrays his usual go-getter self, as his character moves to the city and tries to become a successful businessman, in order to impress his girlfriend. Along the way, there are many amusing mishaps, which conclude with the aforementioned skyscraper sequence. Quite magical in its silence, as compared to the later remake, also by Lloyd, "Feet First".

Highly recommended for silent film fans, and anyone wanting to get a taste of the genre.

Wiry, athletic, bespectacled Harold Lloyd may rank third after Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton in "silent age" comedy polls, but when it comes to perilous, pulse-racing, gravity-defying stuntwork, he's the "King of the World!"

The aptly-titled "Safety Last" is without a doubt Lloyd's signature film. The indelible still taken of Harold dangling from the minute-hand of that Big Ben-looking clock is definitive silent screen imagery. A shame too for it is only one classic moment from a tireless legacy of work that is too often overlooked.

Isn't it amazing that despite knowing the outcome of this movie, knowing that Lloyd survived all these crazy stunts, your heart still skips a beat every time he scales that 12-story building, floor by floor, encountering every obstacle imaginable...or unimaginable? Those pesky pigeons, the mouse, the flagpole, the painters, the rope, the mad dog and, of course, the clock. What adds to the intrigue is knowing he did his own stunts, that he had lost fingers prior to this filming in another movie mishap, that there were no safety nets underneath, and that there was no trick photography used. I say Harold deserves a more prominent place in movie history, suffering for his art as no other artist has.

The plot leading up to his daredevil antics is fairly pat but sprayed throughout with inventive sight gags. Harold plays your simple, hapless, small-town 'everyman' who goes to the BIG city to seek fame and fortune, leaving his true love (played by Mildred Davis, his real-life wife) at home until he's makes it. Fresh off the bus, he eventually manages to scrape up a job as a clerk in a department store, a job that takes him nowhere fast. To save face, he keeps sending expensive trinkets back home that indicate otherwise. Convinced that he has indeed made it, she heads off to the BIG city to join him, much to his chagrin. Desperate to earn quick cash before she discovers the truth, he takes his boss up on an offer and works up a publicity ruse to drum up sales for the store.

The rest is classic Lloyd. Wearing his trademark straw hat and horn-rimmed glasses, the meek mouse suddenly turns into Mighty Mouse as our boy, through a series of mishaps, literally moves up in the world, scaling heights even he never dreamed of!

All's well, of course, that ends well, as we've been saying for centuries. Sure, we know how things ended back in the good ol' days, but isn't it great to know that when Harold got the girl, he STAYED with the girl? In real life, Harold and Mildred remained sweethearts for over 45 years.

Highly recommended for those who want to see more of this genius's amazing work is "Kid Brother" and "The Freshman." For me, this guy still provides one heck of an "E" ticket rollercoaster ride.

The first half of this film takes place between Harold Lloyd and his fiancée. Harold works as a clerk in a department store. There are plenty of sight gags in this section, including the hilarious scene where Harold hides in a coat hanging on a coat tree. You have to see this to believe it.

The second part of the movie consists of Harold climbing up the side of a building. Forget that this movie was made in 1923. This scene is one of the most hair-raising things ever filmed and will have you on the edge of your seat. It builds and builds with one gag after another, climaxing in the timeless movie image that everyone has seen, of Harold hanging from the hands of the clock on the building. Every time I watch this scene I get very nervous.

I highly recommend this film even if you are not a fan of silent films. Though Harold Lloyd's overall fame was eclipsed by Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, this film deserves to been seen and ranks as one of the best silents ever made.

See it on DVD.