Watch the Film

I love Buster Keaton. He was a genius of an amazing range of talents. Up until seeing this film, THE CAMERAMAN was my favorite of his work. Now it’s this film. In only 44 minutes Keaton has created one of the funniest films I’ve ever seen.

He plays a movie projectionist who is studying to be a detective. He wants to marry his girl (Kathryn McGuire, THE NAVIGATOR), but the local sheik (Ward Crane, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA) also vies for her hand. After the sheik sets up the projectionist as stealing the girl’s father’s (Joe Keaton, THE GENERAL) watch, the wanna-be detective is heartbroken. He goes back to the theater and as he falls asleep he is transported into the crime film playing on the screen where he becomes the suave detective Sherlock, Jr.

The real life bumbling of the projectionist in contrast to the skills of Sherlock, Jr. is quite wonderful. Then comes the gags, which are a collection of some of the best Keaton has ever done. The most amazing part is that every gag helps build the character.

I absolutely loved the billiards sequence. The timing in the film is perfect. The special effects in the film are amazing and can make even the most observant film watcher scratch their heads and wonder how they were done. There’s one stunt where Keaton gets hit by a flow of water that years later Keaton discovered actually broke his neck and he didn’t even know it.

Keaton is so charming that his characters are inherently likable. Like Chaplin, he relatively played the same type of character, but for Keaton each film has a little bit of a twist. Here Keaton gets a chance to play two opposite characters, but we know they have the same heart. I cannot stress how amazing and laugh out loud funny this film is. If you’ve never seen a silent comedy before, this is the place to start. One of the best ever made.