My Favorite Buster Keaton Film

Well, you can't talk about Charlie Chaplin without talking about Buster Keaton, so it's his turn his month. Keaton was a much harder director to pick a film for though, because I don't tend to think of his films as whole films, but rather the stand-out set piece sequences that they contain - the storm sequence from "The Navigator," for instance, or the bridge collapse from "The General," or the stunning movie theater sequence from "Sherlock Jr." Keaton was always the more technically inventive and proficient of the silent comedians when it came to gag construction, so it tends to be his gags I remember more than the narratives. I tend to enjoy his shorts more for that reason, and "One Week" is by far my favorite.

However, we're talking about features in this series. So I picked the Keaton film that's really just one long gag, that builds and builds over the course of its brief, fifty-six minute running time: "Seven Chances." Adapted from a stage play, "Seven Chances" presents the dilemma of Jimmy Shannon, played by Keaton, who discovers that he will inherit millions from his deceased grandfather if he gets married by seven in the evening that day. Jimmy rushes to pop the question to his sweetheart Mary (Ruth Dwyer), who has been waiting for him for years, but she turns him down after discovering his ulterior motives. This leads to a day-long search for a suitable bride. The "Seven Chances" of the title refer to the seven women that Jimmy attempts to woo into marriage, one after another.

As set-ups go, it's hard to find one more delightfully ridiculous. Romance was never Keaton's strong suit, though he often had love interests in his movies. Unlike Chaplin's Little Tramp, who was sentimental at the drop of a hat and wore his heart on his sleeve, Keaton's Great Stone Face was a much more standoffish character and seemed more unsure about the whole love business. So he was much more prone to focusing on the frustration and aggravation of romantic encounters. Jimmy striking out with one woman after another is hilarious, but it also presents Keaton at his most sympathetic and relatable. What modern man hasn't felt the same way at some point about trying to find a mate?

"Seven Chances" reaches its climax with one of the greatest comic sequences in silent cinema. Here it's not a runaway steam ship, a misbehaving locomotive, or a natural disaster that threatens our hero. Instead, we have something far more terrifying: a mob of women dressed as brides who turn up to help Jimmy out of his predicament at the behest of a newspaper ad thoughtfully printed up by one of Jimmy's co-workers. When it appears they will be thwarted in claiming their prize, they turn their wrath on hapless Jimmy, touching off a glorious chase sequence that is only resolved by the intercession of a full-blown avalanche.

The chase sequence is still jaw-dropping to watch. Keaton's athleticism is on full display, dodging boulders, climbing trees, and dashing all over the frame at astonishing speeds. And of course this was 1925, so there were no stunt doubles, no special effects, and hardly any trick photography to speak of. The boulders used in the avalanche were all paper mache creations, but there were over a hundred made for the occasion, and some were massive. Keaton's terror is palpable. The obvious fakery make the stunts no less thrilling or enjoyable.

And then there were the 500 female extras hired to play the would-be brides, a teeming mass of finery-bedecked feminine rage that become a seemingly unstoppable force of nature in aggregate. They chase Jimmy through the streets of Los Angeles, disrupting traffic, a football game, building construction, and more. The chase only lasts about four minutes, but it feels much longer because it's so intense and so much fun to watch. The sight gags just keep building and building on each other to absurd, giddy extremes.

Keaton would go on to engineer much more complicated and grand scale stunts in his more famous later feature films. But I don't think he ever came up with anything funnier than the chase sequence in "Seven Chances," or hit quite such a potent satirical nerve. And the film also makes for a great illustration of the big differences between his work and Chaplin's. Charlie Chaplin played characters downtrodden by society. The whole universe always seemed to be out to get Buster Keaton.

And so while Chaplin remains my favorite of the silent film greats, I will always have a great affection for Keaton's work too. You simply could not make a film like "Seven Chances" today (though somebody did try with a doomed remake in 1999), and that's a real shame. Sometimes all you want out of a movie is a good laugh, and Keaton always delivered.
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What I've Seen - Buster Keaton

Three Ages (1923)
Our Hospitality (1923)
Sherlock, Jr. (1924)
The Navigator (1924)
Seven Chances (1925)
Battling Butler (1926)
The General (1926)
Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928)
The Cameraman (1928)
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