Film academy marks 90th year of 'Safety Last,' Hollywood sign

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1944: Canadian actress Deanna Durbin eating an early breakfast while sitting under a hairdryer on location for the filming of Universal’s musical “Can’t Help Singing.” (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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1955: Director George Sidney, left, wears a diving mask while directing American swimmer and actress Esther Williams on the set of his film “Jupiter’s Darling.” The cameraman is wearing scuba gear. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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1948: Actress Ingrid Bergman sits next to the camera during a break in filming on the set of director Victor Fleming’s film “Joan of Arc.” (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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1932: Stan Laurel, with a blackened eye, and Oliver Hardy during a break in the filming of “Towed in a Hole,” directed by George Marshall. [For the record: This caption previously stated that the film was 1928’s “The Finishing Touch.”] (John Kobal Foundation/Getty Images)

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February 1958: Montgomery Clift on location in Indiana with Elizabeth Taylor for the filming of “Raintree County.” (BIPS/Getty Images)

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Circa 1935: Mary Boland and Charles Ruggles with writer Herbert Fields, film editor Richard Currier, script girl Evelyn Earl, director Alfred Santell, cameraman Alfred Gilks, head electrician “Sailor” Holton, Dean Jagger and Leila Hyams on the set of Paramount’s “People Will Talk.” (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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1967: John Wayne, with his son, on location in Mexico for the filming of “The War Wagon.” (Keystone/Getty Images)

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Circa 1938: John Payne, who was once a wrestler, became a general all-purpose leading man mainly in westerns and musicals. He is keeping fit on location in Pensacola, Fla., during filming of “Wings of the Navy.” (Homer Van Pelt/Getty Images)

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1951: Clark Gable having a shave during filming of the MGM production “Across the Wide Missouri.” (MGM Studios/Getty Images)

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Circa 1923: Mildred Harris, a leading lady and first wife of Charlie Chaplin, is applying make-up on the beach between production shoots. (Edward Gooch/Getty Images)

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Circa 1937: Dorothy Lamour, playing with “Jiggs” the chimpanzee, while on location in Palm Springs for “Her Jungle Love.” (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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Comedy team Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin performing on the set of the television show “Hollywood vs TV.” (Gene Lester/Getty Images)

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Circa 1915: Filming a Broncho Billy movie at Essanay Studios in Chicago. Broncho Billy, America’s first cowboy hero of the silver screen, is the second figure from the left, wearing chaps and a white hat. (Chicago History Museum/Getty Images)

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1955: Charlton Heston, left, rides on horseback while shaking hands with Yul Brynner, who stands in a chariot before filming the chase sequence on the set of director Cecil B. DeMille’s film, “The Ten Commandments.” (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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Barbra Streisand offers a cup of coffee to Prince Charles as they chat on a set at Warner Bros. studio in Los Angeles on March 19, 1974. The Prince is visiting Southern California while his ship is docked in San Diego. (DFS/Associated Press)

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Al Pacino, center, is on the set of “Author! Author!” in New York City’s Washington Square on Oct. 20, 1981. (David Handschuh/Associated Press)

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In this Aug. 17, 1984, photo, actor Roger Moore, as British secret agent James Bond, is seen with his costars Tanya Roberts, left, and Grace Jones on the set of “A View to a Kill,” near Paris, France. (Alexis Duclos/Associated Press)

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Actor Larry Hagman on the set of his TV series “Dallas” on Feb. 2, 1979. (George Brich/Associated Press)

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Phoebe, a mynah bird and one of the stars of the TV series “Petticoat Junction,” perches on the back of a chair during a break in filming in Hollywood on Aug. 9, 1963. (David F. Smith/Associated Press)

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Elizabeth Taylor leaves the set of “The VIPs” at London Airport on March 20, 1963. Taylor was following in the wake of her costar, Richard Burton, who had stormed off the set complaining about the crowd of onlookers milling about. (Victor Boynton/Associated Press)

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Buster Keaton, comic film actor from the silent era, dressed as Santa Claus, and Bobbi Shaw as Santa’s helper are on the set of “Beach Blanket Bingo” in Los Angeles on Dec. 17, 1964. (DAD/Associated Press)

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James Whitmore points out buildings of the Manhattan skyline to British actress Deborah Kerr on a Hollywood sound stage, Sept. 18, 1949. The backdrop was prepared for a scene in “Please Believe Me.” (Frank Filan/Associated Press)

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Technicians rig wires and charges in preparation for blasts and fires to be set off in buidings along a recreated Los Angeles street for the film “The War of the Worlds” on June 6, 1952. The houses are painted to match existing buildings in Los Angeles. (Ellis R. Bosworth/Associated Press)

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General view of the set built at Chatsworth, Calif., for “The Big Fisherman” on Oct. 24, 1958. The buildings depict the city of Tiberias built on a hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee. In the foreground are extras dressed as Roman soldiers awaiting their cue to ride. (David F. Smith/Associated Press)

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Director Jerry Lewis, right, checks camera angle on the set of “The Nutty Professor” on Dec. 3, 1962, in Los Angeles. (David F. Smith/ Associated Press)

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Tuesday Weld and Steve McQueen on the set of “The Cincinnati Kid” in 1965. Cameraman Phil Lathrop is taking a light meter reading before filming the scene. (MGM/Associated Press)

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Scores of teen-agers film a musical number for “Bye, Bye, Birdie” on Jan. 10, 1963. Director George Sidney is on the camera crane. (Don Brinn/ Associated Press)

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Director Michael Cimino, left, talks with actor Robert De Niro, wearing beret, during a break in filming of “The Deer Hunter” on location in Bangkok, Thailand, on Sept. 11, 1977. (Neal Ulevich/Associated Press)

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A model of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge is blown up in “41 Days of Terror” on Oct. 25, 1960. (Nobuyuki Masaki/ Associated Press)

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A scale model of a Los Angeles street goes up in flames on a Hollywood sound stage during filming of the scene from “War of the Worlds” on June 6, 1952. (Ellis R. Bosworth/ Associated Press)

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George Hamilton walks on the roof of the Hotel Louvre during filming of “Jack of Diamonds” on Oct. 17, 1966, in Paris. (Jean Jacques Levy/Associated Press)

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Stars Omar Sharif and Geraldine Chaplin wait while a photography crew checks a camera during filming of “Doctor Zhivago” in Spain. (MGM/Associated Press)

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Actor Charles Bronson, at Sing Sing in Ossining, N.Y., on March 30, 1972, while cameras roll for “The Valachi Papers.” (Ron Freh/ Associated Press)

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In this July 26, 1971, photo, Alfred Hitchcock, right, discusses filming with actress Anna Massey, one of the stars of “Frenzy”, in Covent Garden Market in London. (Leonard Brown/ Associated Press)

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Director Ron Howard takes a seat behind the camera during the production of his comedy “Gung Ho” while on location at the Allegheny County Airport near Duquesne, Pa., in August 1985. At right is his father, actor Rance Howard, who has a cameo.

(Keith B. Srakocic/Associated Press)

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Director Woody Allen chats with Oscar-winning actor Jose Ferrer, right, during the production of his comedy “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy” in New York’s Upper West Side on Aug. 18, 1981. (Loren Portnow/ Associated Press)

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The legendary movie monster Godzilla creates a dust storm during the production of the Toho production company’s 24th Godzilla movie at its studio in Tokyo on Aug. 3, 2000. During the production of “Godzilla vs. Megaguirus,” 1,500 of the monster’s fans applied to a week-long “see Godzilla filming” tour organized by Toho and a travel agency. (Tsugufumi Matsumoto/Associated Press)

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A real chimp, Kelly, is getting a human-style plastic nose for his role in “Escape from the Planet of the Apes” because his nose is flatter than the actors in ape makeup. A film technician, left, applies the nose while actors Kim Hunter and Roddy McDowell look on in Hollywood on Jan. 20, 1971. (David F. Smith/Associated Press)

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Director Francis Ford Coppola instructs his crew as they set up to shoot a scene in New York’s Little Italy for “The Godfather III” on May 19, 1990. (Gene Page/Associated Press)

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Special effects artists shoot the model of the dirigible the Hindenberg during the filming of Robert Wise’s “The Hindenberg” on Aug. 18, 1974, at Universal Studios in Los Angeles. (David F. Smith/ Associated Press)

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Two-time Oscar-winning film director Oliver Stone (“Platoon,” “Born on the Fourth of July”) gets a look at a camera angle for a motorcade scene in his film “JFK” in Dallas, Texas, on April 17, 1991. (Pat Sullivan/Associated Press)

By Susan King

Aug. 8, 2013 8:30 AM PT

Back in 1923, silent-film clown Harold Lloyd had one of his greatest successes with “Safety Last,” which features the iconic sequence of him dangling off a clock on a high-rise in downtown Los Angeles. That same year, the symbol of moviemaking — the Hollywood sign — was erected in the hills above the city.

On Friday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Oscar Outdoors screening series is holding a 90th birthday party for “Safety Last” and the sign, both of which have endured thanks to restoration and preservation efforts.

FOR THE RECORD:
Harold Lloyd: An article in the Aug. 8 Calendar section about the 90th anniversary of Harold Lloyd’s screen comedy “Safety Last” misidentified Lloyd’s leading lady and wife, Mildred Davis, as Mildred Harris.

The Hollywood sign, which originally read “Hollywoodland,” wasn’t created to promote the major studios that had set up shop in Los Angeles after years in New York and New Jersey. It was actually an advertisement for a local real estate development and was only supposed to be up for 18 months.

PHOTOS: Behind-the-scenes Classic Hollywood

But as the film industry grew, the sign came to symbolize the power, panache and influence of cinema. And so it became part of the landscape.

The sign lost the “land” suffix in 1949 when the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce started a contract with the City of Los Angeles Parks Department to repair and rebuild the sign.

Randy Haberkamp, the academy’s managing director for programming, education and preservation, has put together a clip reel for Friday night of 35 films that have used the Hollywood sign, from the 1930s to the recent Oscar-winning best film, “Argo.”

“It’s a lot of fun because, as you know, the Hollywood sign gets destroyed and changed in the movies,” Haberkamp said. “There is everything in the clips from the sign blowing up at midnight to Mighty Joe Young jumping through the ‘O’ to a ransom being left under the ‘W’.”

PHOTOS: Classic Hollywood side notes

Audiences will be treated to a new digital restoration of “Safety Last,” two 35mm Harold Lloyd home movies and a clip of “Safety Last” that his granddaughter, Suzanne Lloyd, converted into 3-D.

Harold Lloyd came up with the idea for “Safety Last” while walking down Broadway in downtown Los Angeles one day.

“He looked up and he couldn’t believe it,” his granddaughter said. He saw Bill Strothers doing a “human fly” act on one of the highrise buildings.

“He saw the crowd’s reaction, where the people were screaming, yelling and fainting,” she said. “He thought, ‘I’ve got to put him on screen. I want this reaction.’ He introduced himself to Bill and said, ‘Come to the studio. I want you to meet Hal Roach, my producer.’ ”

Lloyd cast Strothers in the film as Limpy Bill, his character’s roommate and a construction worker who has human-fly capabilities. In the film, Limpy Bill is supposed to climb up the wall of a building as a publicity stunt for the department store where Lloyd works. But because he has to hide from a cop, Lloyd is forced to do the stunt.

PHOTOS: Billion-dollar movie club

Thanks to clever angles and movie magic, it appears that Lloyd was dangling way, way above the streets of downtown Los Angeles. Still, said Suzanne Lloyd, he was often up “five stories high. If he took a fall, it would be a pretty decent fall. In fact, when they showed some of the [footage] to the insurance broker, he refused to give him life insurance.”

Lloyd’s stunts in this film and his other comedies, including “The Freshman,” are even more remarkable because he basically had the use of only one hand. In 1919, a prop bomb he was holding exploded, temporarily blinding him, burning his face and causing him to lose the thumb and one finger from his right hand. He masked the loss with a glove and the public never knew.

“He found a way to cover it up and keep going. It’s remarkable,” Suzanne Lloyd said.

“Safety Last” also marked the last time Lloyd worked with his leading lady, Mildred Harris.

“They got married right before the film premiered,” Lloyd’s granddaughter said. “In the movie he got the girl, they got married and he gave her a home. In true life, he married the girl and gave her a home.”

The 90th anniversary celebration of “Safety Last” and the Hollywood sign is sold out, but there will be a stand-by line. For more information, go to www.oscars.org.

susan.king@latimes.com

Film academy marks 90th year of ‘Safety Last,’ Hollywood sign

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