1923 / Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor > Often forgotten amongst Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin is silent comedy master Harold Lloyd who, a year before Keaton’s special effects bonanza in Sherlock Jr., created a comedy of lively proportions in Safety Last! Most famous for the image of him dangling from a clock atop a Roaring Twenties skyscraper, the film is an entertaining comedy that centers around Lloyd trying to make his girlfriend back home believe that he’s become a successful store manager in the big city. This simple act, which has worked as a story basis for hundreds of films afterward, leads to all kinds of hilarity and stunts by the actor. Personally, I found that it barely aged, and that a film of such a nature could not benefit from the addition of sound or color. It feels honest and authentic, and with a running time of roughly 70 minutes, it also packs in quite a punch without testing one’s patience.