Sherlock Jr.

This Keaton classic is both funny and extremely clever in its construction. Our hero is a cleaner but dreams of becoming a detective, always with his nose buried in a book on the subject.

The first third of the film is much like any other comedy. There are lost dollar bills, things sticking to other things, something stolen, mistaken identities. Our heroine is introduced in a charming scene where they seem terrified to hold hands. Her father is played by Buster's father Joe Keaton, who would appear in many of his son's films.

There's a mustachioed cad with slick hair and a sharp suit who is after the girl, a cartoon baddie who the audience instinctively knows deserves a hiss and not a cheer.

It is in Junior's other job as a cinema projectionist that the film comes alive. We are watching the film he has set up and then, suddenly, he is part of the action. In a sequence of great inventiveness, we see the film within a film changing scenes and watch with delight as the character adapts to each situation and surrounding.

Sherlock Jr is very funny but is also unusual and, in comparison with other comedies of the period, ahead of its time. It includes some excellent stunts that are the equal of anything done by Harold Lloyd in the same period, and, although it has a very short running time, manages to develop a good storyline throughout.

Justly feted as a masterpiece of silent comedy, Sherlock Jr represented one of the peaks of Buster Keaton's cinematic career. It is a film worth watching and has stood up well today.

I have to say that this is by far Keaton's finest work. I have seen and own about 19 of his films/short films and this is the one that truly stands out.

It is rare these days to find a comedy which will make you laugh each and every time you see it. Yet this one, to me, seems not only to be able to do this but also to get BETTER the more you watch it.

The physical comedy, sight gags and insane stunts never cease to amaze me. That is what I love about Buster, the fact he did his own stunts shows that he was a great believer in producing a film that was genuine, that didnt try to trick or fool it's audience.

I find it sad that today most people seem to think that comedy is about dialouge and punch lines, when it is clear from film master pieces such as Sherlock Jr. that this is not true. Silent movies are not to be ignored just because they are 'old', when I watch many of them they feel as fresh as any new comedy - if not more so.

So thank-you Buster!

There ought to be a theater that shows nothing but perfectly preserved prints of the silent comedies of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Harry Langdon. There ought to be a lot of things, I guess. But anyone who thinks that silent film is nothing more than a crude and unskilled ancestor of today's motion picture need only spend some time on these great comedies to realize that, in this genre at least, the peak was reached in the 20s. Yes, there are funny movies with dialogue, but the humor is generally IN the dialogue...nobody--not the Marx Brothers, or W.C. Fields, or Abbot and Costello or the Three Stooges and nobody since--has achieved the sublime mastery of physical comedy these geniuses did. And the best of them all for pure comedy, to my mind, is Keaton. And the best of his movies is Sherlock, Jr. The dream sequence in which he becomes an actor in the film he's projecting is astonishing; the way in which this movie is a sort of window into a different and appealing age is charming--and the ending of this movie takes the breath away. Keaton made some of the great endings in film, I think. Check out "College" some time--just for the last minute or so. If you ever have the chance to see this film in a good print at the right speed with appropriate music, and you don't take that opportunity, shame shame shame. This is one I'd like to own.

My second silent film for the class that I viewed for my class was just as entertaining as the first, which was Charlie Chaplin's The Circus. Buster Keaton playing the role of the movie projectionist Sherlock Jr. was very entertaining. The story is simple, yet interesting and fun, and the movie comes in at much less than one hour, 44 minutes to be exact. While there are a few points in the movie that are disjointed and not as fun, overall you can stay engrossed enough until you get to some really cool and innovative special effects, which given the technological limitations when this was filmed in the 1920's are simply amazing.

Sherlock Jr. is one of Buster Keaton's best films, and possibly his greatest. The film starts somewhat slow as it sets Keaton up to be a struggling wannabe detective. There are some comedy moments that play well and the opening is rather enjoyable.

But then, the film soon becomes 100x better as he literally steps into the movie that he is watching. We watch a sequence that maybe is not necessary for the overall story but what is a completely entertaining watch as the scenery changes in the movie he is in. Every cut is timed perfectly, even watching it back in slow motion is still a struggle to work out any unusual movements in his character between the scenery changes. It is brilliantly funny, especially when the scenery changes just as he is jumping into the sea to then jumping into a snow pit.

The rest of the film follows Keaton as he goes about as a habitually clever detective in the film he has entered. The gags are so brilliantly worked out that you don't know whether to laugh or to watch in amazement. You think that surely that gag was the greatest of the film but then he goes and tops it in the next scene. Keaton did all of his own stunts which makes it even more astonishing to watch, and sometimes rather intense especially when he passes over a train track being just inches from the moving train. It is a film that words cannot describe and that has to be seen to truly be believed. Sherlock Jr. represents the truly unique style of filmmaking from the silent era, something that you would never see any other time in the history of film.

If you're looking to get into silent film comedy, or just silent film as a whole, then Sherlock Jr. is a great place to start. Every part of the film is still as funny today as it must have been then. The timing is perfect. And the film is only 45 minutes long!