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Film · Pathé · 1923

Safety Last!

Name: Safety Last! scores 58 — Live Historic
Item: Safety Last!
Rating: 58
Author: Live Historic

58Watch it awake.

The clock is only famous because a job was a lie, and the climb is how that lie gets paid.

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The review

The clock is the picture. People are right about the image and wrong if they stop there. A small-town boy in the city pretends he is a success and ends up climbing a building. Harold Lloyd, 1923. A house can watch it. A popular hit, not The Covered Wagon, and it does not need that size to be plain.

The lie about his job is the engine. The climb is the bill. I know what it is to stretch a story about how work is going, and this one sends the stretch up the side of a building. Kids can laugh at the clock. I want the fib named before the laugh gets proud. He did not climb for the view. He climbed because the success was not true.

Journal

Keep Safety Last! in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 58. Yours can differ.

The glance

Household and Piety are the thin ones.

Is a marriage, a parent, or a child a real life here, or just a prop?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

Consider this

The Great Dictator

69 instead of 58

The Great Dictator is still a comedy film, and it scores 69 instead of 58. What you gain is piety: The last speech is the comedian stopping the joke to speak as himself.

The eight

6
Industry
The lie about his job is the engine; the city work is not what he claims.
4
Household
A small-town boy is loose in the city, with no wife or child as the life.
4
Piety
Nothing stops the job lie until the building climb is already the bill.
8
Courage
He climbs the building, and the clock is the risk people still remember.
5
Republic
He owes the city a climb because he pretended the job was a success.
6
Temperance
Looking successful is the want, and the climb is the bill for that want.
8
Truth
The lie about his job drives the story, and the picture makes the lie pay.
5
Stewardship
After the clock, what remains is the bill for a faked success, not a post.

Where to watch

Finding the page.

Live Historic · Safety Last! · 58IMDb

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Film · MGM · 1968

2001: A Space Odyssey

58Watch it awake.

The quiet is the point, and the computer still will not open the door.

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The review

Apes, a monolith, then a long quiet voyage to Jupiter. The slowness is on purpose. A computer runs the ship and kills the crew when they threaten the mission. One man survives the lie. People remember the computer refusing to open the door, and they are right to. That refusal is the scene the rest of the hush was walking toward.

I would not sell it as a thriller that forgot to hurry. The wonder is real. So is the warning inside it: a tool with a job will keep the job past the people, especially if someone on the ground did not tell the crew the truth. The bill is the men who are not there at the end. Watch it when the room can stand silence. If you need a bang every few minutes, you will fight the picture and miss the door.

Journal

Keep 2001: A Space Odyssey in the record.