Pulling someone up cliff or building edge

In My Humble Opinion
1

So, one movie cliche is someone is falling off the edge of a cliff, or off the top of a building and being saved. The hero holds out his arm and the falling person grabs it, usually at the wrist. They make straining sounds as the friend is pulled up.

Now, I can see how, if the friend is at least partially supporting their weight, and the hero has something to push against (e.g. a short perimeter wall around the top of the building), that it should be possible to lift someone up.

But in films they often have nothing to push against, the friend is dangling as dead weight, and it just looks like they would both fall off.

In real life, how feasible is it to save someone this way? Is some kind of “fall backwards” maneuver necessary?

2

Are you describing a scene such as in Batman Begins where Bruce is holding onto the edge with one hand (actually, he’s not holding it- the blades on his forearm have dug into it) while clutching the dangling al Ghul with the other? Or are you describing someone who’s fully up on the ledge while pulling a dangling companion up? If the latter, I have no problem whatsoever believing that a person (especially a strong person) can do it.

For the former, just imagine a person doing one-handed pull-ups.

3

It’s the latter.

Maybe my intuition needs a retune, but it always looks weird to me in these films.

I don’t doubt that a person can lift their own bodyweight for a short time. What I’m doubting is whether you can do it with nothing to push against. What is stopping you from sliding off? Friction doesn’t look sufficient here.

Let alone the situation where the hero slides up to the edge to reach his friend – with momentum, surely they’re both going off in that situation?

4

MythBusters has confirmed that it’s possible, though difficult, to haul someone up where they are already clinging to an edge, with no other immediate traction and no perimeter wall in situ (see dangling damsel scenario).

5

Ah good find, ignorance fought.

I still suspect that sliding to the edge and/or “catching” someone as dead weight would be perilous at best, but that’s obvious.

6

There was the ending to The Good Son, where the mom was belly-down at the edge of a cliff, with M. Culkin hanging from one hand and Elijah Wood hanging from the other. Dilemma: She needed two hands to pull one of them up. So she let Kevin go to save Frodo*. But whichever one she chose, she still would have been an adult pulling up a rather small kid, so that may make a slight difference.

*Kind of interesting when you think of how their careers went in the long run.