Safety Last, the 1923 Movie Featuring the Most Iconic Scene from Silent Film Era, Just Went Into the Public Domain

Safe­ty Last, the 1923 film star­ring Harold Lloyd, fea­tures one of the most icon­ic scenes from the silent film era. Writes Roger Ebert, the scene above is “by gen­er­al agree­ment the most famous shot in silent com­e­dy: a man in a straw hat and round horn-rim glass­es, hang­ing from the minute hand of a clock 12 sto­ries above the city street. Strange, that this shot occurs in a film few peo­ple have ever seen. Harold Lloy­d’s Safe­ty Last (1923), like all of his films, was pre­served by the come­di­an but rarely shown.” All of that might be about to change. Along with a num­ber of oth­er clas­sic works, Safe­ty Last went into the pub­lic domain this week. So now every­one can watch the film, when­ev­er they please. Watch a com­plete ver­sion on YouTube here. Restored ver­sions of the film can be pur­chased through Cri­te­ri­on.

Safe­ty Last will be added to our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

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