‘Safety Last’ Is a Classic Quiet Riot : Movies: Harold Lloyd’s silent comedy will screen tonight as part of a film series at the Fullerton Museum Center.

Harold Lloyd’s “Safety Last,” which opens the Fullerton Museum Center’s “Comedies, Cults and Classics--Films You Won’t Forget” series tonight, features what is arguably the most famous scene in silent-movie comedy.

The shots of Lloyd climbing several stories of a Los Angeles skyscraper, overcoming a rash of obstacles (including a giant clock with treacherous hands) to reach his sweetheart, were the high-water mark of the filmmaker’s own brand of “thrill” comedy. With that style, he accomplished something different: he unnerved audiences while making them laugh.

“Safety Last” (1923), because it etched Lloyd’s style so clearly and was instrumental in establishing the full-length comedy feature, is historically ranked on a par with Buster Keaton’s “The General” (1926) and Charlie Chaplin’s “The Gold Rush” (1925).

Like Chaplin and Keaton, Lloyd started in Hollywood doing one- and two-reelers. In those days, there were doubts that slapstick could hold an audience for more than the handful of minutes these shorts usually took up--full-length features were reserved for romances, melodramas and action epics.

Lloyd, who developed his first character in 1915--”Lonesome Luke,” derived from Chaplin’s Little Tramp--wanted to expand the form, a goal shared by Keaton and Chaplin. On that path, Lloyd evolved his signature movie personality, eventually settling on what he described only as “the glasses character.” This character--bespectacled and crowned by a jaunty straw hat that declared him as an All-American go-getter, albeit a bumbling one--was in place by the time shooting for “Safety Last” began.

Unlike Chaplin, who didn’t take the time to orchestrate much of a plot for his pictures (he was content to join the whole with brilliant comic set pieces), Lloyd was more like Keaton in that he preferred a relatively detailed story line. In “Safety Last,” Lloyd becomes “Harold,” a clerk in danger of losing his department store job.

To get the money he needs to marry his girlfriend (Mildred Davis), he needs to win the $1,000 prize for a publicity stunt: the climb up the building’s facade. Lloyd sets up these basics with a combination of punchy humor and plot turns, all stemming from Harold misleading his girlfriend into thinking he’s doing great at work, even though he’s close to losing his job.

As for that “daring” ascent--which audiences believed Lloyd actually made, adding much to his box-office popularity--it was a case of Hollywood legerdemain. Lloyd, who maintained through most of his career that he had indeed performed the scene, came clean in 1971 and admitted that he had used trick photography involving a platform on a roof of a building, split screen camera work and a stunt double to create the effect.

* Harold Lloyd’s “Safety Last” screens tonight at 7:30 at the Fullerton Main Library, 3553 W. Commonwealth Ave., Fullerton. Pianist Robert Israel will provide live accompaniment to the movie. Tickets: $3 and $4. Information: (714) 738-6545.