When Hal Roach Studios released the classic comedy Safety Last! in 1923, it knew it needed a big publicity splash to launch the picture. So it hired a famous stunt climber, Harry F. Young, known in show business as the “Human Fly,” to climb up the side of the Martinique Hotel in Manhattan and cause a commotion.

If you’re an old movie buff, you might remember why. Safety Last! is one of Harold Lloyd’s classic silent movie comedies. The most well-known sequence of the movie, and one of the most famous shots in movie history, has the actor dangling from the spire of a downtown Los Angeles skyscraper, clinging for life to the minute hand of the tower’s clock. It’s a hilarious, scary-funny moment that still works 100 years later.