Buster Keaton im siebenten Himmel

Buster Keaton is at an amusement park. First he's in the House of Trouble and then he gets slapped in a tunnel ride. He finds a large balloon. The balloon gets loose and he gets taken for a ride. He tries his hand at duck hunting and shoots his own balloon. He crash lands and tries to do some fishing. He gets into a constant fight with a woman fishing until they run into a bear.

I really laughed when he brought out the duck decoys. It would have been better for Keaton to extend the balloon ride. That is fun and something different. Once he gets on land, the story isn't quite as much fun. It's interesting to have the bear but that's to see if he's getting bit or not. I really the balloon but it's far too short.

This is the only short feature of Buster Keaton's I have seen, it is funnier than I thought, what with the bear chases and the hot air baloon. However, it didn't seem as sophisticated, clever or as funny as "The General" or "Our Hospitality", it was lacking the usual clever, knowing edge of silent films e.g. Sunrise, The Kid. Which has now been replaced by CGI. Saying ll that, some of the stunts in it are extremely cool and really funny, perhaps the best introduction to Keaton. It is available on "Seven Chances" and on "Buster Keaton Shorts (Volume 1), along with Convict 22 and other things.

Good, not brilliant, ****/****

Actually, there are only a few minutes of Buster Keaton and the big hot-air balloon in this 22-minute movie. Most of it is Buster and Phyllis Haver out in country, separately, canoeing and having adventures fishing and hunting. In the end, they get together for a few scenes including a "cute" ending with some waterfalls.

Overall, it's okay but nothing hilarious. Most of the gags are very loosely connected, but that's not unusual for a short silent comedy film. Buster provides most of the laughs but Haver, a new female face not seen by me before in a Keaton film, is not a bad comedienne.

I watched this right after a much faster-paced Keaton short ("Neighbors") so this looked a little slow in comparison.

This is not one of Buster Keaton's best short features, but it has some good moments. Most of the gags are of good quality, and most of the sequences work well enough. The main thing it really lacks is that, unlike most of Buster's movies, it never really builds on itself or gets much momentum. In his best features, the setting and story help make the decent gags very funny and the good gags hilarious.

Buster becomes "The Balloonatic" when he is trying to help a balloonist prepare his craft, and it accidentally takes off with Buster on top of the balloon. He winds up in the wilderness, where he and a young woman that he meets (Phyllis Haver) have to fend for themselves.

Although this one doesn't fit together quite as well as his best comedies, being mostly a series of only loosely-connected gags, some of them are very good in themselves. If nothing else, it has enough that it should probably be of interest at least to those who are already Keaton fans.

This Buster Keaton short has a very good title. But as you will discover there really isn't much actual ballooning in it. As you might expect from a short film its pretty simplistic. It begins at a fun-house where Keaton accidentally hitches a ride in a hot air balloon. He is propelled miles away and winds up in the wilderness. He meets a girl out here who isn't initially too keen on him but together they get in to all manner of scrapes including some memorable scenes with grizzly bears.

It would be fair to say that this is not a great feature. It doesn't have a very cohesive narrative and essentially boils down to a series of gags loosely connected into the synopsis above. It's really mainly recommended to fans of Keaton and/or silent slapstick in general. Others might be a bit underwhelmed.