#5: Harold Lloyd
That famous photograph of a bespectacled young man hanging from the hands of a giant clock can still make palms sweat, even after we know how the illusion worked. Safety Last! (1923) used clever perspective and sets erected on increasingly tall Los Angeles rooftops so that the camera could preserve the terrifying view of the streets below. Nevertheless, the danger was not manufactured entirely by the lens. Lloyd performed much of the climbing himself at real height, despite being afraid of heights and despite having previously lost his right thumb and forefinger in an accident involving what he thought was a prop bomb.
