''Feet First'' is a 1930 American

pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines, popularly known ...

comedy film starring

Harold Lloyd Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. (April 20, 1893 – March 8, 1971) was an American actor, comedian, and stunt performer who appeared in many silent comedy films.Obituary '' Variety'', March 10, 1971, page 55. One of the most influential film c ...

, a popular daredevil comedian during the 1920s and early 1930s. It was Lloyd's second sound film. The film's copyright was renewed in 1957, so it will not be in the public domain until January 1, 2026.

Plot

Harold Horne, an ambitious shoe salesman in

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

, meets his boss's secretary Barbara, thinking that she is the boss's daughter, and tells her that he is a millionaire leather tycoon. Horne spends much of his time around Barbara hiding his true circumstances, in both the shoe store and later as an accidental stowaway aboard a ship. Trying to evade the ship's crew, he becomes trapped in a mailbag, which is taken off the ship and falls off a delivery cart onto a window cleaner's cradle, which is hoisted upwards. Escaping from the bag, he is then dangling high above the streets of Los Angeles. After several thwarted attempts to enter the building, he climbs to the top, only to slip off, unaware that his foot is caught on the end of a rope, which rescues him inches from the ground.

Cast

as Harold Horne *

Barbara Kent Barbara Kent ( Barbara Cloutman) December 16, 1907 – October 13, 2011) was a Canadian film actress, prominent from the silent film era to the early talkies of the 1920s and 1930s. In 1925, Barbara Kent won the Miss Hollywood Beauty Pageant. ...

as Barbara *

Robert McWade Robert McWade (January 25, 1872 – January 19, 1938), was an American stage and film actor. McWade was born in Buffalo, New York. He was the third actor named Robert McWade, after his father and grandfather. In 1902, McWade debuted on stag ...

as John Quincy Tanner * Lillian Leighton as Mrs Tanner *Henry Hall as Endicott *

Noah Young Noah Young, Jr. (February 2, 1887 – April 18, 1958) was a champion weightlifter and actor. Biography Young was born in Cañon City, Colorado. His father, Noah Young, was a foreman of the Glenrock coal mine who later became a coal mine i ...

as Sailor * Alec B. Francis as Mr Carson *

Arthur Housman Arthur Housman (October 10, 1889 – April 8, 1942) was an American actor in films during both the silent film era and the Golden Age of Hollywood. Career Arthur Housman was one of the first screen comedians known to the public by name, and on ...

as Drunken Clubman *

Willie Best William Best (May 27, 1913 – February 27, 1962), known professionally as Willie Best or Sleep n' Eat, was an American television and film actor. Best was one of the first African American film actors and comedians to become well kn ...

as Janitor *Nick Copeland as Man Arguing With Friend * James Finlayson as Painter *Buster Phelps as Little Boy *

Leo Willis Leo Willis (5 January 1890 – 10 April 1952) was an American actor who began his career in the silent era. He played mainly tough guys and comic villains, notably opposite Harold Lloyd, Charley Chase, and Laurel and Hardy at the Hal Roach Stud ...

as Truck Driver

Production

Co-star

This was Lloyd's second film with

, and the last occasion on which he would appear with the same leading lady.

Stunts

The skyscraper sequence used techniques similar to those on Lloyd's most famous film, the silent ''

Safety Last! ''Safety Last!'' is a 1923 American silent romantic-comedy film starring Harold Lloyd. It includes one of the most famous images from the silent-film era: Lloyd clutching the hands of a large clock as he dangles from the outside of a skyscraper ...

'' (1923). The scene was filmed without

special effects Special effects (often abbreviated as SFX, F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the imagined events in a story or virtual wo ...

or back projection. Before the scene in the 1962

compilation film A compilation film, or compilation movie is a film composed of scenes and shots taken from two or more prior films and edited together so as to make a new film, whether on the same or a different subject. The most common example would be a docum ...

'' Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy'' (produced by Lloyd), a title card reads:

"This sequence was made without trick photography and before process was perfected. The action — at all times — actually occurred as high up as you see it happen."

The impression of height was achieved by use of a skyscraper façade built on the roof of the Southern California Gas Company building on South Broadway in Los Angeles. Lloyd had previously used this technique in ''Safety Last!'' at a location only a few blocks away from that used for ''Feet First''. The concluding sequence of the climb, in which Harold Horne falls from the building with a rope attached to his foot, briefly uses back projection for a mid shot.

Rereleases

The film was rereleased in the 1960s as part of the feature ''Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy'', in which Lloyd

overdubbed Overdubbing (also known as layering) is a technique used in audio recording in which audio tracks that have been pre-recorded are then played back and monitored, while simultaneously recording new, doubled, or augmented tracks onto one or more av ...

some of his original dialogue, including changing the name of a black character originally named Charcoal. He also added a dramatic

underscore An underscore, ; also called an underline, low line, or low dash; is a line drawn under a segment of text. In proofreading, underscoring is a convention that says "set this text in italic type", traditionally used on manuscript or typescript a ...

to the climb sequence that was composed by

Walter Scharf Walter Scharf (August 1, 1910 – February 24, 2003) was an American musician, best known as a film, television and concert composer and arranger/conductor. Biography Broadway theatre Born in Manhattan, he was the son of Yiddish theatre comic B ...

. In the original release, the scene had no music. The film was rereleased in segments as part of Time-Life's ''Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy'' television series in the 1970s. However, as the majority of the clips in the series originated from silent films, the soundtrack was removed for the ''Feet First'' segments. The film has since been released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

in its correct format.

References

External links

* * *
The Harold Lloyd Trust
{{Clyde Bruckman 1930 films 1930 comedy films Silent American comedy films American black-and-white films 1930s English-language films Films set in Honolulu Films set in Los Angeles Paramount Pictures films Films directed by Clyde Bruckman Films with screenplays by Felix Adler (screenwriter) 1930s American films