Grandeur et décadence

Sky Movies just screened this in UK ; 2001 restoration by Lobster Films, with some great tints and hues. Running time about 23 minutes makes it pretty complete, overall not too much nitrite decomposition on the print either. It did seem to drag in places, today's audiences seem a bit less able to take the pace, although there are some great sequences. The best scene is probably the elongated one on the run from the law, particularly on the riverboat where Buster is caught on the wheel as it sails and apparently walks on water. The gag ending falls kind of flat, but overall a pretty complete print to my knowledge - 6/10 for the film and 10/10 for the folks at Lobster Films !

A comic short with some wonderful scenes, `Day Dreams' unfortunately is not as consistent as it should be. Some of the comedy just doesn't have that Keaton magic. Going to the city to make something of himself so he can marry his home town sweetheart, Keaton naturally finds himself in a variety of entanglements. The scenes outside the clothing story are great. But the highlight is the hilarious chase by the cops; it ranks with the pursuit scenes of `Seven Chances' and the cattle scenes of `Go West' for sheer ingenuity and fascinating orchestration.

Since 7/10 seems too high and 6/10 seems too low. Daydreams has Keaton as an unskilled man seeking the hand of the girl he loves. Her dad says that he can't marry her unless he proves himself able to earn a living. Keaton says he will go to the city to earn his fortune. If he fails he will return and shoot himself. Dad promises to loan him his revolver.

You see Keaton writing letters about one sequence of events- He is a doctor performing operations in a hospital (he actually works at a veterinarian's), he is "cleaning up" in the financial sector (he is a street sweeper), and he is performing Hamlet onstage (he is an extra in a male chorus line in vaudeville). The big sequence is the same as that in Cops, with Keaton being chased by hundreds of cops for what seems like a minor offense. Aren't there burglaries and robberies to solve?

What probably weakens this short a little bit is that only stills remain of some of the sequences such as Keaton as a surgeon and as a stock broker. But it has enough good gags to be worth it for any fan of Buster Keaton. Featuring Keaton regular Big Joe Roberts as a menacing bully, Keaton's own father as his best girl's father, and Renee Adoree as Keaton's girl, who never seems to ask herself how exactly Keaton could be performing operations if he has never gone to college or medical school.

Buster Keaton asks a father for the hand of a nice girl. Since Keaton does not know whether he is able to support the girl he goes to the city to prove that he can and promises to her father he will shoot himself when he fails. The girl gets letters from Keaton explaining what he is doing at the moment. First he works in a sanatorium, his letter says. The next shot tells us that he is nothing more than an assistant in a dog clinic. Of course things do not go well. Then he writes he was tired of the sanatorium and is now cleaning up things. What and how he is cleaning up is the best part from this short. Again he messes things up big time and his next job is in the theater, doing 'Hamlet' to be precisely. Of course things are not as they appear to be in the letter. His coming home is another highpoint in this short.

Although 'Daydreams' does not belong to the funniest Keaton shorts I have seen so far, it definitely has some Keaton magic. I like him more than Chaplin because he is able to really make me laugh instead of just smile. Here he does that a couple of times, especially in the two parts I mentioned above. Although there are less chases, parts where I think he is at best, than I am used to, Keaton gives us a nice short. I have come to understand that the surviving prints of this film are incomplete but I can assure you that the story feels complete.

"Daydreams" is basically a collection of sketches, book-ended by an opening and closing pair of scenes. As such, it has something of the perfunctory feel of a 'compilation episode': the storyline, inasmuch as there is one, consists of Buster exaggerating the status of, trying and failing at a series of lowly jobs, but while the individual episodes vary in humour, they never build into anything greater than the sum of their (rather brief) parts. Films like "Hard Luck" or "The Balloonatic" have the merit of a reasonably coherent progression from one somewhat arbitrary encounter to the next; this one is constrained by the necessity of cutting back to the framing structure, which deprives it of that vital illusion of logic. Whether as a consequence of this or not, the result is not nearly so funny. (The best sequence is possibly a battered Buster's arrival back on the doorstep of his beloved... at the hands of the US Postal Service!)

For fans, this is worth watching as ever just in order to see Buster in action, and there are certainly laughs to be had; but it offers little human interest -- this is Inept Buster without the customary redeeming turning of the tables -- and suffers from a lack of his usual narrative inspiration. The humour tends in places towards simple slapstick (Buster squirts a hose, people get wet) rather than the inspired second-guessing of audience expectations at which he excels. The funniest concepts (disguising himself as an inert shopkeeper's dummy, keeping pace exactly with his pursuers) are echoed in more successful comedies, and sadly the famous paddle-wheel clip is really less impressive when actually seen in the context of the slender plot. This comedy is inoffensive, but not really a showcase for Keaton's abilities; unlikely to win over any converts, perhaps.