Frigo fregoli

I just watched The Play House which was the first film that was presented in the "Industrial Strength Keaton" DVD collection of various Buster Keaton films from the silents to the end of his life. The first half where he appears in various incarnations of himself was quite impressive especially when 9 of him appear together in the same frame. Some amusing, if not hilarious, gags occur there. The rest of the short has Buster being an actual stagehand/performer who goes through more hilarious mishaps that has to be seen to be believed. I especially loved the way he put out a man's fiery beard or got a woman out of a water tank. Not to mention how he impersonates a monkey. Or how he tells one twin sister from another. So on that note, I highly recommend The Play House.

This has to be one of the strangest, most daring films ever made by a major Hollywood studio, and surely the funniest and most perceptive study of madness in all cinema. The first ten minutes are a breathtaking display of bewildering surrealist magic. Buster Keaton buys a ticket for a variety show. Buster Keaton conducts an orchestra of Buster Keatons, defeated by their hostile instruments. An art-deco line of Buster Keaton minstrels have a calm discussion, while pairs of male and female Buster Keatons make up the audience, restless, spiteful and belligerant.

This is stunning cinema in any language (arf), and a supreme visualisation of mental breakdown, distorted personality, megalomania, and the most terrifying anxieties. It is also an hilarious pre-empting of the auteur theory - the elaborate playbill reveals Buster Keaton to be responsible for EVERYTHING, from scenario to lighting - this monopoly of creativity leads to chaos, madness, fragmentation and estrangement.

As in so many of Keaton's films, this remarkable fantasy is shown to be the dream of a lowly, bullied man, this time a theatrical hand. Far from diminishing the film's dreamlike structure, this revelation intensifies it. An astonishing series of variations on the line between art and life, dream and reality ensues, an argument which descends into ever-increasing spirals of confusion and disintegration.

Some of Keaton's best comic set-pieces follow, all hilarious in themselves, yet underlining the melancholy and fears of Buster himself - be he ordinary man or isolated genius. Life can never remain stable for him, his personality is shot to pieces - whether through existential crises or booze is unclear; like Gulliver in Houyhnhm land, his humanity is stripped to the level of bestiality - a very funny, subversive sequence, which is as despairing as the end of NIGHTMARE ALLEY.

The supposedly redemptive love interest is a bewildering, tormenting game on Buster, as he repeatedly fails to remember which twin is his fiancee. The continually collapsing sets are a thematically rich, Usher(playhouse, geddit?)-like representation of Buster's fragile mind. To universalise the genius of Buster Keaton is to belittle and emasculate him. He is like us only because his trauma is so particular.

In his prime, there was nobody quite like Buster Keaton, deservedly considered one of the greats in silent comedy. Nobody back then and even now were as daring when it came to high-risk stunt work in physical comedy and he was an unparallelled master at making deadpan both funny and expressive. Something that one doesn't see an awful lot as many would struggle at doing one of those let alone both well.

'The Play House' may not quite be among his very best overall, in a filmography full of quintessentials. When it comes to Keaton's short films though, and there is a vast amount of them, it's one of my favourites. 'The Play House' is a must see for any fan and for anybody and everybody and it is one of the most imaginative and funniest examples of the type of story it has, deliberately and undoubtedly silly certainly but endearingly so.

Of his silent short films, 'The Play House' is one of the best looking. The closest his short films get perhaps to being a technical achievement with a surprising amount of boundary pushing in film trickery when playing the amount of characters Keaton plays simultaneously.

A lot of funny and even hilarious moments, beautifully timed, deliciously wacky and it never feels too much. All of them work, when you watch 'The Play House' having just watched a good comedy albeit with a couple of misses in the humour department or a comedy that is not funny at all and not good in quality too that is great. There is enough variety to not make it all repetitive. Some of the more physical work is typically daring

While a very slight one, the story is charming and never dull, even with the freedom it has. The vaudeville dream sequence is the very meaning of a show-stopper. Virginia Fox is appealing and the rest of the cast have fun with their roles.

Keaton is the reason to see 'The Play House' though. In a huge number of roles executed simultaneously and handled expertly. Such great comic timing and he is worth rooting for as well, his unique quality of his deadpan delivery never faltering.

Summarising, wonderful. 10/10

In The Play House there is an opening sequence with multiple Buster Keatons on stage, playing the performers, musicians and the audience. It is a dream sequence which also comes across as a tribute to Georges Méliès.

This short then settles down as Keaton plays a stage hand and a performer, well a performing monkey. Keaton also tries to woo his girl but she is a set of identical twins and he keeps picking on the wrong twin to kiss. He then gets constantly interrupted by the main performer who is also a beastly big man leading to hijinks and acrobatics.

This short is rather episodic and surreal. Keaton's stunt work is more safe here as he was recovering from an injury at the time.

This is an unusual and extremely creative short comedy that shows off both Keaton's technical and comic skills, and it's loaded with clever visual details. Keaton's main character in this one is a stage hand, but he plays 20 or more different roles, most of them in the fascinating and bizarre opening sequence. The craftsmanship is perfect - even when several images of Keaton appear in one shot - and when you realize what the sequence represents, it's very suggestive as well. The main part of the film moves a little more slowly, but has some good laughs in it. There is a nice recurring joke about Keaton's girl - she is one of a pair of twins, and Keaton can never keep them straight. While Keaton made other films that are more uproariously funny, "The Playhouse" is a gem of inventiveness, and is highly recommended for anyone who enjoys silent films.