The Blacksmith

This film bears a strong resemblance to the Keaton/Arbuckle collaboration "The Garage". Here Keaton is the somewhat inept assistant to a bully (Big Joe Roberts) in a garage where he works as a combination blacksmith and auto mechanic. Ordinary props and tools of the trade become instruments of mischief and mayhem, along with some not-so-ordinary devices of Buster's own design.

During this short film he completely wrecks a new Rolls Royce, a car that retailed for ten thousand dollars back in the early 20's. Did the Keaton Studios have the budget for the destruction of such a vehicle? Some have conjectured that this might have been the Rolls Royce that Keaton received as a wedding present from his brother-in-law and benefactor, Joe Schenck. Also conjectured is that the scene where he is shoeing a horse and equating it with trying to sell shoes to a finicky female customer could have been a dig at his new wife's excessive clothes shopping. This film was made about a year after his marriage to Natalie Talmadge - a marriage that even started out on very rocky ground, and these would have been the kind of passive-aggressive stunts that Keaton was well known for.

I'd recommend it.

A simple story. A great effect. A lovely comedy, in which not exactly the story is significant but the amazing inventivity. A nice short film, proposing an apprentice and his hilarious mistakes and a love story among horses and cars.

This is a very pleasant and amusing Buster Keaton short. Never heard of this one. Here he plays a blacksmith that, well, since this IS a Buster Keaton film, gets into a lot of various shenanigans. EG, new ideas for saddles for horses, a spotless white horse gets some new stripes, and so on. Actually, when viewing this, you get a very interesting view of a blacksmith's shop circa the 1920's. Apparently they were also doing auto mechanics as well? Keaton also has some gags with what looks to be an S.U.V. for that time period. And of course, he gets in trouble with the boss (with the boss getting his just desserts (which happens in nearly every Buster Keaton movie ever made) ) and Buster gets the girl (ditto). A very funny and light little short.

I would rate this below-par for a Buster Keaton short. It's not bad, just not quite up to Buster's wild and craziness he usually exhibits in these short 20-minute films. He set high standards.

Instead of amazing physical feats or a bunch of chase scenes, most of the jokes are either Buster getting a horse dirty or breaking something or someone else doing it, or a nutty invention for a "shock absorber" for riding a horse. They are all mildly amusing, but that's it.

Perhaps part of the problem is that most of the movie takes place in a blacksmith shop/automobile garage. Keaton, with his athletic prowess, needs room to maneuver, and he doesn't have it here.

A young blacksmith's apprentice, through the usual in luck and malfunctioning gadgetry, ends up with control of the works for a while. There he tries to make do with all he's learned and what he has, including clever little jokes like horse's shoes in shoeboxes, a watch that needs to be fixed by fire, and a horse-back shock absorber. However, despite his genuine attempts at making everyone happy, eventually all of the customers grow irate, putting the young blacksmith-to-be in danger.

Typical Keaton in its inventiveness, this one has not much to make it stand out from any of his other works except for the delightful destruction of a high-class care, a neat little subversive poke towards conspicuous consumption sentiments. Otherwise, pick a plot line from any other Keaton short, make it revolve around a blacksmith's shop, and you got this neat little fun-fest.

--PolarisDiB