Safety Last!
Action! If there’s one word associated with cinema, the tension of movie sets, and the focus of attention, it’s this one. Action is very often at the heart of popular cinema: Harold Lloyd hanging from the clock hands in Safety Last! (1923), Cary Grant threatened and strafed by a plane in North by Northwest (1959), Franka Potente gasping for air in Run Lola Run (1998)... Westerns, swashbuckler films, martial arts or adventure flicks, thrillers, all these genres rely on action—sometimes frenetic, sometimes meticulously measured.
From movies by Sergei Eisenstein to Gilles Carle, from John Ford to John Boorman and Werner Herzog, via Paul Verhoeven, Kathryn Bigelow, Park Chan-wook, Érik Canuel, and Nicolas Winding Refn, this series will take you through the full range of emotions, from laughter to thrills, from fear to satisfaction.
Accompanied on the piano by Chantale Morin
A salesman tries to impress his boss and ends up having to climb the store's facade. Harold Lloyd's most famous film and a masterpiece of silent slapstick comedy.
Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor
Fred C. Newmeyer was an American actor, film director and film producer. He is best known for directing a handful of films in the Our Gang series and for directing several Harold Lloyd movies. With Sam Taylor, Newmeyer co-directed Lloyd in eight films including Safety Last! (1923), Girl Shy (1924), and The Freshman (1925). Newmeyer also had an extensive directing and acting resume in other comedy short films. He appeared as an actor in 71 films between 1914 and 1923. Sam Taylor was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer, most active in the silent film era. He is best known for his comedic directorial work with Harold Lloyd and Mary Pickford, and also later worked with Laurel and Hardy.
