ABSTRACT
Famous for its image of silent comedian Harold Lloyd hanging from the hands of a giant clock while attempting to scale the outside of a skyscraper for the entertainment of crowds below, Safety Last! (1923) explores the role of the independent filmmaker-star as both dependent on and critical of the structure of the established industry in the 1920s. In addition to a discussion of the industrial context of the film and its place in Lloyd’s career, this chapter examines Safety Last! as an early engagement with cultural and aesthetic aspects of American independent film usually dated to the Sundance Film Festival era, including character-focused realism, formal play, and opposition to mainstream Hollywood. Much like the post-1978 indie film, Safety Last! valorizes independence as a form of individualism in a society increasingly marked by the mass production of commodities and conformity to the crowd.
