Convict 13

"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.

A prisoner escapes from prison and steals and changes clothes of a golf player (Buster Keaton). The policemen wrongly arrest the player instead and once in prison, he realizes that he is going to be hanged in the afternoon. The player swaps clothes with a guard and fights against a rebellion in the prison.

"Convict 13" is a very naive and silly, but also funny Buster Keaton's short comedy. The gags are very similar to Charles Chaplin style, and most of the time the situation looks like a cartoon. It is not among my favorite works of Buster Keaton, but it worth watching and it is a good entertainment. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Condenado No 13" ("The Convict no. 13")

Buster Keaton short Convict 13 is as close to a live-action cartoon as you could get: it's one crazy scene after another, with only the slightest of plots to tie all of the scattershot comedy together.

The film opens on a golf course, as Keaton struggles with his game, landing his shot in a lake. He doesn't give up though, climbing onto some wood, paddling out with his club, and diving into the water to retrieve the ball, which has been swallowed by a fish. Having found the ball, he continues his round, but knocks himself out when a shot rebounds and hits him on the head. While Keaton is unconscious, an escaped convict swaps clothes with the golfer; moments later, guards arrive and take Keaton-now wearing distinctive striped prison-wear-back to pokey where he is to be hanged.

From here-in, it's rapid sight gags and buffoonery galore, with an elastic noose preventing Keaton's neck from being stretched, and a prison riot leading to all kinds of silliness, including an altercation with a gigantic inmate (Keaton still in danger, having swapped his prison garb for that of a guard). There's loads of fun to be had, with never a dull minute in the whole thing, which makes it easy to excuse the rather abrupt 'it was all a dream' ending.

7/10.

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.

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).