Safety Last!

Silent film icon Harold Lloyd used physical humor to create awe-inspiring spectacles—truly treacherous feats of derring-do for him and his stuntmen that left audiences gasping in nervous delight. But Lloyd also understood the perils of unrealized potential and the deadliness in disappointing loved ones who so deeply believe in you. So goes the winningly romantic conceit of his 1923 classic Safety Last!, which will be screened at the Long Center for the Performing Arts with live accompaniment from theatre-organist extraordinaire Clark Wilson on the center’s ornate Mighty Wurlitzer organ.

In the film, Lloyd plays a lowly department store clerk trying to make a splash in the big city and impress his girlfriend back home. His solution? A death-defying stunt to draw huge crowds to the store, for which his boss promises to pay a $1,000 bonus. The catch? He’ll have to perform the dangerous stunt himself. The scheme culminates in one of cinema’s most indelible images—Lloyd hanging from the hands of a clock high above the streets of Los Angeles.

Featured on the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, Safety Last! is an indispensable treasure of the silent-film era and motion picture history. Don’t miss your chance to see this equally hilarious and thrilling marvel of movie magic as it should be seen—on a big screen, accompanied by one of the finest performers on one of the finest theatre organs in the Midwest!

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