Feet First
About Feet First
Honolulu shoe clerk Harold Horne tells Barbara, the boss's secretary, that he is a leather millionaire. He keeps the lie going in the store and then as a stowaway on her ship. Hiding from the crew, he is shut in a mailbag, dumped on a window-washer's cradle, and hauled up a Los Angeles facade. He climbs, misses every window, slips from the top, and is caught by one foot in a rope just above the street.
Cast & crew
More about Feet First
Clyde Bruckman directed, Harold Lloyd produced and stars, and Paramount released it in the United States on 8 November 1930. Wikipedia gives the cost as $647,353. It was his second sound feature, and the climb was shot on a facade built on the roof at 848 South Broadway.
Themes
Look
The building climb was photographed on a real roof set at 848 South Broadway, not on a miniature, except for one back-projected mid-shot.
Technique
Lloyd repeated the Safety Last! idea on a facade bolted to the Southern California Gas Company roof, with Los Angeles streets visibly below.
Music
Mischa Bakaleinikoff is the uncredited composer named on Wikidata for the 1930 score. The climb itself had no music in that release.
Preservation
The copyright, renewed in 1957, expired on 1 January 2026. A print is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Barbara Kent plays Barbara. Robert McWade is John Quincy Tanner. Lillian Leighton is Mrs. Tanner. Noah Young is a sailor. Willie Best plays a janitor.
- The original release left the climb without music. For the 1962 compilation Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy, Lloyd added lines and Walter Scharf scored that sequence.
- A brief mid-shot in the climb uses back projection. The rest does not.
- The copyright was renewed in 1957. The film entered the U.S. public domain on 1 January 2026.
Scenes
- Harold tells Barbara he is a leather tycoon.
- The mailbag drops onto the window-washer's cradle.
- His foot catches a rope a few feet above the pavement.
Influenced by
- Harold Lloyd's Safety Last! (1923)
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Feet First (1930).webm)
