Of the early masters of silent comedy, Buster Keaton is the easiest to relate to nowadays. Where Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp seems an artifact of along ago, Keaton’s put-upon everymen are still capable of evoking recognition in us: we could be him.
One of his earliest classics, Sherlock Jr. (1924), is out on Blu-ray and DVD along with the lesser-known Three Ages (1923), a spoof of D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance. Directed by Keaton, Sherlock Jr. shows his artistry at its height. He plays a movie projectionist who dreams of becoming a detective and eventually dreams himself into the detective film his bijou is showing. Even before his spirit enters the movie within the movie, Sherlock Jr. comments on the way film had already colonized the imagination of millions.
Keaton’s was usually a relatively cool and only slightly ruffled persona, his poker face often at the edge of aggrieved dismay—the sort of person who preferred to confront his foes through subterfuge. Keaton’s characters might not have been the brightest bulbs on the marquee, but they burned longer through sheer determination. Keaton was unstoppable in the face of adversity, whether in the form of hateful scoundrels, cruel tricks of fate, the inertia of the world and even the mechanisms of modernity, which often blew screws and springs in his presence. Unlike many old-time movie comedians, Keaton is still funny after all these years.
