Why [people] should be supposed to find entertainment and not torture in seeing another human on the point of falling to certain death is a mystery to what intelligence I possess. However, there are six reels of it, and it proved vastly entertaining.

| Feb 22, 2023

As for Lloyd, we always knew he was funny, but we never realized how funny until this one. It isn't only that he does funny stunts; his comedy method Itself is perfect of its own original kind.

| Feb 22, 2023

As photocomic entertainment it is in a class by itself. We have rarely heard people laugh and shriek in a theatre as they did yesterday.

| Feb 22, 2023

This Harold Lloyd high-class low comedy has thrills as well as guffaws.

| Feb 22, 2023

Strong nerves are essential while viewing the hair-raising stunts of Harold Lloyd in his latest release, Safety Last.

| Feb 22, 2023

It is a breathless thill picture, perfectly made, as [Lloyd's] pictures always are, but lacking the spark of originality he usually endows his work with.

| Feb 22, 2023

[Lloyd] certainly manages to provoke many a laugh.

| Feb 22, 2023

Harold Lloyd is one of the very few who can be laughed at in the same breath as the mighty Chaplin. So it is annoying to have him spoil it all in his first seven-reel picture by falling back on a succession of cheap spectacularisms for much of his effect.

| Feb 22, 2023

Harold Lloyd's latest effort is filled with laughs and gasps. When people are not rocking in their seats at the strand they will be holding on to the chair arms to keep them down.

| Feb 21, 2023

Seven reels of even the best farce must involve gaieties of rather thin humour, and Harold Lloyd's latest picture, Safety Last... is no exception to the rule. There also periods in it, however, when the fun is quite irresistible.

| Feb 21, 2023

But for the relieving comedy the climb would be a shock to sensitive nerves, but as it is done, this effect has been skillfully avoided and the laughs outnumber the gasps.

| Feb 21, 2023

The fact remains that the heart-arresting stunts performed by Mr. Lloyd as he climbs the side of a towering skyscraper... are startling enough to send a shiver down the back of even the most hardened steeplejack in the world.

| Feb 21, 2023

To those who enjoy a hearty laugh, interspersed with thrills that make you gasp for breath Lloyd's comedy will prove a treat, but if your heart is at all jumpy take your smelling salts along.

| Feb 21, 2023

It is called Harold Lloyd's greatest picture, and no one who sees It will be disposed to quarrel with that characterization.

| Feb 21, 2023

Safety Last is a seven-reel mirth maker that follows an entirely new trend, culminating in a series of the most astonishing stunts on the sheer wall of a skyscraper that any camera ever has caught and, by the same token, wrecking the nervous system.

| Sep 2, 2020

The film’s contemporary feeling isn’t rooted in its immaculate presentation so much as it is Lloyd’s undaunted visual economy and the haplessly human nature of the Glass character, itself.

| Sep 21, 2017

Harold Lloyd manages to make the characters sympathetic enough to carry the audience's concern on his journey of crazy stunts and mishaps. One of the best of this era.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 18, 2013

The clock-hanging climax that caps this generally charming tale of a country boy out to make his fortune in the big city is a superb example of his ability to mix suspense and slapstick.

| Jun 24, 2006

The Glasses character in Safety Last would have blended with the background of the department store where he worked if it had not been for action imposed upon him. But what action!

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jan 20, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | May 8, 2003