SHERLOCK JR.
Buster Keaton
1924

A word about films

Shorts:

Short films are both defined and categorized differently by different groups.

The Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences defines a “short film” as being 40 minutes or less of running time including all credits.

There are many terms involved in subdivisions of “short films” like “featurettes”, one and two reelers. More recently there have been “short shorts” (under three minutes) and filmminutes (under a minute) festivals.

A reel of 35 mm film is 1,000 feet and runs 11 minutes at 24 fps with sound and slightly longer without sound (16-22 fps)

A “two reeler” would run about 20-24 minutes. These were generally comedies and the term 2 reeler tends to mean a comedy film of that length.

Going to a “picture show” in the past generally involved seeing a number of different kinds of films on the program. In the 20’s the program consisted of a feature film ad a variety of short subjects: cartoons, travelogues, newsreels, coming attractions, and often popular short comedies (and often serials). These were often arranged by the theater owners rather than the production companies. The nature of the relationships between theater owners and production companies changes radically and ultimately the production companies have a great deal of influence over the theaters often requiring the theater owners to take “packages” of films so that a number of poorer films would have to be taken in order to get the more popular ones. This shift became intensified in the 30’s with the depression. The studios sold “packages” of a feature, and a supporting second feature or co-feature and a cartoon. Theaters got these packages along with having to contract for numbers of feature films

Production of two reel shorts stopped since the co-feature was long. Many of the two reeler stars like Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin were moved into feature films. Only a few continued on: George O’Hanlon’s Joe McDoakes Our Gang went on until 1944; and the Three Stooges, the last major series of 2 reelers ended in 1959. Cartoons being cheaper have continued on ocassionally.

KEYSTONE STUDIOS (MACK SENNETT 1880 - 1960) The studios were founded July 4th 1912. The studio was known for its comedies and two kinds of films:

Sennett lwent off on his owm in 1917 to produce his own films which were distributed through Paramount

As a kind of "in joke", in Arbuckle-Keaton short, “the Garage”, when Arbuckle gets up, he kisses a picture of Mabel Normand, She was his co-star in many Sennett comedies and is probably one of the women who could be considered a major comedienne along possibly with Marie Dressler. Dressler appears with Chaplin in Tillies Punctured Romance which is considered the first full length comedy.

Physical Comedy and the Nature of Violence

It seems apparent that much physical comedy is rooted in violent physical action – even the word “slap stick” and “pratfall” indicate some of this. The movement in this country against violence has resulted in questions about whether or not violence engenders violence or whether all things called violent here have the same impact on people. (Violence itself is difficult to define) There have been discussion of “cartoon violence” which is unrealistic but still questionable. Other have claimed there is nore violence on the news than there is in film (Cher (Alicia Silverstone) in Clueless question why we should get rid of violence in stories where it is needed for dramatic impact and leave it in then news).

Film violence is not the only kind. Some of the early criticisms were raised against the popular violently homicidal “Punch and Judy” puppet shows. Stage violence is not unknown either and one might even question the lengthy on stage battles in The Miracle Worker. Of course not all comedy is violent and some of the things considered funny are closer perhaps to pathos or sadness. Chaplin often moves in this direction. This raises ther question of whether or not there is something funny about something sad? Think about sad faced clowns like Emmett Kelly. There is a German noun Schadenfreude which means literally "harm/loss/damage - joy". It is close to the English verb "to gloat" but it is a noun. It means to derive pleasure from someone's failure, or misfortune. It may be something one can relate to humor which is deriving pleasure from something.

BUSTER KEATON

Buster Keaton was born on Oct 4, 1895 (died Feb. 1 1966) in a small town in Kansas called Piqua which Keaton claimed had been blown away

Keaton’s family came from Vaudeville He joined the act at 3. The act dealt with the way to handle a bad kid and involved Buster being thrown around by his father. into the scenery and on at least one occasion at some hecklers in the audience. Buster once claimed that every bone in his body had been broken at least once. The act was considered by many the most violent act in Vaudeville) (One of Keaton's doctor’s actually discovered several years after the event, that he had broken his neck during the filming of one of his films, not in the Vaudeville act)

Keaton is often called “The Great Stone Face” for reasons that are clear when watching his performances. His face registers virtually no emotion. He often wrote, produced, directed, and acted (including the stunts) in his pictures.

Keaton was acting on stage when he ran into Fatty Arbuckle who was already performing in films. Arbuckle invited him to the studio to see the production of one of his films and Keaton got a part. The year was 1917 and the film was “The Butcher Boy” (first film for Keaton). From there are in Keaton was hooked on movies and very much on the technical aspects as becomes apparent in his films.

From 1920-1929 is generally considered his “golden age”.

In 1929 he signed contract with MGM which he regarded as the worst mistake he had ever made. The growing control of the tudio system reduced greatly his creative input and he was made to work with scripts that were heavy with dialog. He was fired from MGM in 1934

Keaton was married 3 times :

In the 60’s he was starring in some comedies again: Pajama Party, Beach Blanket Bingo, How to Stiff a Wild Bikini and Sgt. Deadhead. The last commercial film in which he appeared was A Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to the Forum, although he appeared in a Canadian film called The Scribe a “safety film”. He died shortly after that.

He often worked writing "gags" for films like the Marx Brothers film At the Circus 

He commented on the differences between his and Charles Chaplin's characters saying:

"Charlie's tramp was a bum with a bum's philosophy. Lovable as he was, he would steal if he got the chance. My little fellow was a working man and honest".

He also commented on his fim technique saying "When I've got a gag that spreads out, I hate to jump a camera into close-ups. So I do everything in the world I can to hold it in that long-shot and keep the action rolling. Close-ups are too jarring on the screen, and this type of cut can stop an audience from laughing".

Keaton was a kind of improvisor in many shots and said "Half of our scenes, for God's sakes, we only just talked over. We didn't actually get out there and rehearse 'em. We would just walk through it and talk about it. We crank that first rehearsal. Because any thing can happen - and generally did... We used the rehearsal scenes instead of the second take." He was very much a silent screen comedian. He felt the films were a visual medium and once sound came in, words took over rather than action. "In every picture it got tougher. They'd laugh their heads off at dialogue written by all your new writers. They were joke-happy. They didn't look for action; they were looking for funny things to say."

He was good at misleading the audience by telegraphing the joke, but not doing what was expected. "I always want the audience to out-guess me, and then I double-cross them". Keaton made several intersting comments on the nature of comedy. He said "A comedian does funny things. A good comedian does things funny.". This is very much in keeping with what he does in his films. All his jokes are rooted in reality. If the gag is unrealistic it will only take place in a "dream sequence" or something like that. He seems to have gotten great delight in showing how the stunt was done. Remember he was always interested in the techinical side of filming as well.

He also felt that the physically complex and dangerous stunts had to be done by the comedians themselves, because they knew how to make the event funny. This was he explanation for doing his own stunts. He said "Stuntmen don't get laughs". Keaton is regarded as one of the greats an cited by many performers as having been their inspiration. Orson Welles stated that Keaton's The General is "the greatest comedy ever made, the greatest Civil War film ever made, and perhaps the greatest film ever made". A 2002 worldwide poll by Sight & Sound ranked Keaton's The General as the 15th best film of all time. Three other Keaton films received votes in the magazine's survey: Our Hospitality, Sherlock, Jr., and The Navigator.

SHERLOCK JR. The film is justifyably famous for having one of the most complex set of special effects ever seen in films pre-CGI.

AFTER THE FILM

Clearly the most impressive part of the film is the "dream sequence" in which the impossible happens. As was noted earler, such impossible stunts, such as walking into the projected picture are possible in a Keaton film only when it is a dream sequence. All Keaton's stunts done outside the context of a dream had to be possible even if they were highly improbable.