Convicto 13

Convict 13 is definetly one of Buster's better shorts. Fatty Arbuckle is rather oddly absent in this one (probably too busy dealing with the Virginia Rappe case at this point), and his presence is greatly missed. He would have added much to this film. There are some brilliant sight gags, like I said, particularely involving the crowd of coppers chasing Buster around and almost every frame of the scenes at the gallows. It was the ending that more or less let me down. I won't reveal it. I just think it was too abrupt and convenient. It was disappointingly unresourceful, compared to the rest of Keaton's work, which is put on display quite nicely in all the other scenes. One of the best moments is in the very beginning and involves a pond and a golf ball and a piece of drift wood (and a golf club used as an oar).

"Convict 13" is an unrefined but fun short comedy, much less carefully made than Keaton's later films, but still having many good moments. Buster gets a couple of good opportunities to display his athleticism, and Joe Roberts also helps out with some funny moments.

The story starts with a silly mix-up that gets Buster tossed in jail. From there on, he gets involved in a series of antics, mostly improbable, but a very good set-up for physical humor. It has a good combination of slapstick, stunts, and chases, with some of the kind of material common to films of the 1910's plus some distinctive Keaton material. (There are also couple of good gags of the more morbid type that you'd expect from someone like Alfred Hitchcock.)

It might be of interest mainly to those who are already Keaton fans, but it's pretty funny, and well worth watching.

I'd like to add to Claudio's plot synopsis that this film is total surrealism. I was so struck by its superficial resemblance to reality but the story is really taking place in a crazy imaginary world where Keaton as the golfer can grab a fish out of the river (when the ball is knocked there), shake it around and have his golf ball pop out the fish's mouth. The film has a charm all it's own - so different from what Chaplin or Harold Lloyd were doing. I wonder if the European Dadaists were looking at Keaton's early stuff. The time frame is just right. The film is available, by the way,on the Kino Steamboat Bill Jr. DVD. But in an unrestored version, alas.

I've seen better Buster Keaton short films, but this one still manages to portray the rather dreary fate of a man who finds himself in prison because an escaped convict switched clothes with him after he knocked himself unconscious with a golf ball. His is ultimately to be hung, and I think the film deserves respect for keeping you laughing even while a man gets a noose wrapped around his neck. The story involves Keaton's efforts to escape from the prison, oppressed at first by the prison guards holding him prisoner and then by a massive behemoth of a convict, who takes control of the small prison by knocking out all of the guards with a sledge hammer (in a rather entertaining sequence where he smacks them all one by one and they pile up like the police cars in Blues Brothers 2000) at right about the same time that Keaton manages to switch clothes with one of them in order to help himself escape. Lots of clever slapstick gags, some of which may have influenced Chaplin's work in Pay Day, made a couple years later, make this an entertaining short from one of the giants of silent film comedy.

Convict 13 has an interesting concept; here, our Buster is totally hell- bent on getting his ball to its hole and literally fishes out the golf ball from a fish's little mouth when his ball drops into the lake. His game is interrupted when a convict escaping death row finds Buster unconscious (after one of his attempts at golf gone awry) and swaps clothes with him to make it seem as if Buster's the real convict. There's a sparkling sequence where Buster, unaware that he is wearing prisoner's uniform, readies himself to hit the ball as two cops stand to his left and right looking incredulously at him.

On realizing the change in his appearance, he gives them a slip and does manage to evade the not-so-bright cops until he finds shelter… in a prison! Then begins the prison saga, beginning with Buster meeting the love of his life - the socialite daughter of the prison guard – who tries to save Buster from death by switching the hanging noose with exercise rope. Another unforeseeable circumstance – a heavyset prisoner creating chaos in prison – leads to further mayhem. We wait and watch how Buster wriggles his way through each problem only to land into another until the film finds a fitting resolution to his tale.

Along with The High Sign, Convict 13 is probably one of my favorite Keaton shorts. It's like a harmless firecracker that sets off a chain of bombs, missiles and then the nuclear weapon itself! What was especially marvelous about watching Keaton was that while his character always had a smart solution for his problem, he never anticipated the possibility of a worse problem to occur. Consider the scene where he tries to escape from the army of cops; Buster walks in front of them as they follow him like a marching army, so when Buster turns in the opposite direction the cops stupidly follow turn along with him. That's when Buster sneakily escapes and finally hides behind a gate. Before he can take a sigh of relief, he turns to see where he is and finds out that he has reached right into a prison.

Later, when there's a riot in the prison and all the guards have been beaten unconscious by the burly cop, our Buster, again in dark about the riot, tries escaping the cops by knocking out one and wearing his uniform. He confidently enters the section wearing prison guard uniform, where the burly prisoner's waiting to knock him down thinking he's a cop. But Buster's not a prisoner and neither is he a cop; he is no professional golf player either so what is he?

This is answered in the next short: The High Sign. He's a man going nowhere, you'll find him anywhere and he'll land up somewhere. In a way, he's a wandering gypsy living probably the most adventurous life you can imagine. He's very unlucky, as evident by the number 13 given to his prisoner, but he never loses hope that he'll find a way out… almost.