Les ruses de Malec

Story of two farmhand roommates, living in a flat that only Rube Goldberg could have come up with, who are vying for the attention of the farmer's daughter, while Buster's character has to fend off his roommate (Joe Roberts looking very much like Fatty Arbuckle), the girl's father, and father's dog (which actually belonged to Arbuckle). That's pretty much the plot, but the sightgags are what make the short really work. The breakfast scene, with the aforementioned Goldberg setting, is pure genius. A very good production all around and ranks as one of Keaton's best. Rating, based on shorts, 10.

This is a marvelous work of comedy, perhaps one of the very finest of all short comedic films. The ingenuity of Keaton is endless as we see him and his roommate eating breakfast. The dual function of common household objects is incredible. Other stand-out scenes are those with the dog and Keaton as the scarecrow. Although this short work consists of a series of segmented scenes, there is still a fluidity that is quite pleasing. I introduced this work to a couple of teenagers. No complaints about black and white, no objections to its lack of talking. Just laughter and more laughter. `The Scarecrow' is a masterpiece.

One of Buster Keaton's early short films, The Scarecrow (1920) is brimming with youthful energy and silly fun. Keaton shares the screen with Big Joe Roberts and Sybil Seely.

Seely was nothing less than Keaton's finest leading lady, charming and spunky. She was a comic partner, not a "breathing prop" as Keaton's female co-stars are often stereotyped as being. It's a shame she and Keaton never starred in a feature film together, but at least we've got four shorts of them, so I won't complain. (Not too much anyway, ha!) But yeah, lots of cute stuff, like the rigged hut Buster and Joe share, or the wedding held on the motorcycle. For those who encounter pseudo-intellectuals who think Buster Keaton was all solemn and bleak and Kafka-esque, the sunshine of The Scarecrow should shut them up quickly. The man was plain funny.

If you love chase scenes, this Buster Keaton short is for you! Before any chases, however, we see Buster and his roommate, Big Joe Roberts, as they get ready for breakfast, eat it with the aid of a very clever pulley system (you have to see this to believe it) and then clean up. The big one-room house is nothing but gadgets and they are all fun to see.

Then Buster thinks a small "mad dog" is chasing him and the two go round and round both outside and inside the house, and even around the tops of a brick wall. It's clever and fast-moving slapstick.

Buster then winds up being chased by the father of the female (Sybil Sealey) that both he and Joe are enamored with. After that short chase, in which Buster disguises himself as a scarecrow, he winds up getting Joe and the father fighting each other. When they discover Buster is the culprit behind that, they both take out after Keaton....and on and on it goes, with Sybil joining in......overall, a tremendous 19 minutes of sight gags, slapstick and general mayhem.

I'd have to rank this as one of the most entertaining, if not THE most entertaining silent movie short subjects I have ever watched....at least to this point. I still have more to see.

... as the scarecrow gag is just one gag in a two reel short that is full of them.

Buster and Big Joe Roberts are roommates and fellow farm hands. Probably the best part of this short are all of the gadget related gags at the beginning as the two farmhands eat breakfast and prepare to meet the workday. As the pair get ready to leave the house, one bed becomes a piano, the other a couch, and a phonograph doubles as a stove. Keaton always said he would have been an engineer if he hadn't become a comic and his mechanical bent shows in this short.

Keaton seldom used captions as he tended to show you not tell you what's going on. But there's one line here that is odd for a Keaton comedy - "I don't care how she votes - I'm going to marry her." This short was made the first year that women had the Constitutional right to vote. Also Prohibition went into effect this year. Thus the line ""My stomach's as empty as a saloon." It's rare that you need to know something about history to appreciate Keaton, after all, he was not Alice Guy-Blache.