How Harold Lloyd Filmed Safety Last!

The image of Harold Lloyd clinging desperately from the hands of a skyscraper clock during Safety Last! (1923) is one of the great icons of film history.  The recent multiple Oscar-winning movie Hugo (2011) pays tribute to Safety Last!; first by including a clip of Harold’s film within the movie, and again when the young hero Hugo Cabret finds himself hanging from the hands of a clock at the train station where he lives.  Even the poster artwork for Hugo mirrors Lloyd’s earlier film.

Filled with maps, aerial views, and vintage photographs, my book Silent Visions devotes 47 pages detailing how Lloyd filmed Safety Last!, and his other stunt-climbing comedies (Ask Father (1919), Look Out Below (1919), High and Dizzy (1919), Never Weaken (1921), and Feet First (1930)) within the downtown Los Angeles Historic Core, while highlighting the burgeoning Los Angeles skyline appearing in the background of these films.   The following slides provide a brief overview, and may be downloaded further below as a 14 MB PowerPoint presentation.

Here is the link to download the PowerPoint.  Most of the slides are animated, so wait a moment each time before clicking the “next” button.

Hugo (C) 2011 Paramount Pictures

How Harold Lloyd Filmed Safety Last by John Bengtson

You will need a PowerPoint viewer to watch the show, and can download a PowerPoint viewer at this site.

I am also posting here, once again, a self-guided walking tour of the downtown Los Angeles locations Harold Lloyd used in Safety Last!, along with locations from Never Weaken and Feet First.

On the ground, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd filmed scenes from Cops (1922) and Safety Last! at the same Hollywood alley.

You can also check out my other posts about Safety Last! here.

HAROLD LLOYD images and the names of Mr. Lloyd’s films are all trademarks and/or service marks of Harold Lloyd Entertainment Inc. Images and movie frame images reproduced courtesy of The Harold Lloyd Trust and Harold Lloyd Entertainment Inc.

The site of the clock set, above, at 908 S. Broadway on Google Maps.

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