The Garage (Arbuckle / Keaton 1920)

I could have watched this all day. You know, I think some consideration should be given to Fatty and Buster as the greatest comedy team of all time. I don't care if they only made- what was it?- 14 short films: they were fantastic together. This has got just about everything- perhaps a marginally more appealing leading lady and it would have been perfect.
The boys work as garage attendants-cum-firemen. You know, I'm not convinced that these duties were ever routinely combined, but there you go. After a busy morning cleaning Fords and fleecing customers, they are off out battling fires in the afternon, while the boss's daughter enjoys a complicated love life around them. Admittedly there do seem to be rather a lot of disparate elements thrown together here, and, no, it doesn't particularly hang together very well, but for goodness sake, you're not going to get a better sign of quality than the names of Arbuckle and Keaton in the credits, and 'The Garage's is just great.
The funniest little episode is probably the bit with the rotating car drying device (if it has an accepted name, I have no idea what it is)- it's fascinating here to compare and contrast the differing physical styles of the comedians, and how well they use their bodies. Arbuckle was every bit as much a physical comedian as Buster, but their whole approach to their gags was very different. Lovely moment too with Buster's tribute to Harry Lauder- really beautiful, and had me looking Sir Harry up on Wikipedia. Had no idea how famous he was at the time.
Just a quick note on the music on the Masters of Cinema DVD of this- well, actually not the music itself, that's tolerable, but the constant irritating sound effects: whistles and musical 'comments' on what's happening on screen. You will want to turn the sound off.

Neighbors (Keaton 1920)

The washing lines again! What about that. I'm going to start seeing variations on the washing line gags everywhere I look now.
This is brilliantly made and executed, and some of Buster's stuntwork is superb, but... there's something missing. Two feuding families, the boy and girl in love... Ah, it's Shakespeare! Buster and Virginia Fox (a pretty doll-faced creature here, very demure) carry out their romance over the width of the yard between their two apartment buildings, families- especially her father, big mean old Joe Roberts (who seems absolutely colossal here, and quite terrifying)- interfering at every opportunity. I love the location actually- it feels like they're performing on a big open air stage between the houses, and there's so much scope for running gags and visual tricks with the fence slicing the yard in two. There's a hell of a lot to admire here- and the acrobatic human totem pole carrying Buster and Virginia across the yard, from one high window to the other- is one of the most brilliant Buster things I've seen, but perversely it all feels a little over-choreographed and over-planned. Sometimes hesitancy and chance are our friends.
The 'I bought a Ford' gag- what's that about? Way over my head. Is it something obvious that I'm missing, or a topcal reference the effect of which has been diluted by time?

One Week (Keaton 1920)

My goodness, yes. I'd seen this before, years ago, during a brief previous flirtation with silent comedy- curiously enough it didn't leave much impression on me. Certainly a lote less than the Chaplins and Laurel and Hardys I was thriving on at the time. But watching it now I'm gobsmacked that I wasn't singing its praises from the highest rooftop- it really is perfect isn't it? I mean, it does absolutely everything right- the blend of cleverness and funniness is just spot on. A world without Buster Keaton is almost unthinkable- there are few things more asinine than getting into the whole business of ranking silent comedians, but Keaton is of the very first rank, the very first- let's just leave it there.
Buster and the very sweet Sybil Seely are married- as a wedding present they are given a self-assembly house and a plot of land to build it on. Even before the house-building shenanigans there's some great stuff with a jilted ex-boyfriend and a cop- it's all so casually brilliant, and that I think is part of the charm of Keaton: there's nothing particularly in-your-face about what he's doing, he's just subtly brilliant. And the chemistry between the newlyweds is magical too- I think it's quite telling that even with all this wonderful slapstick, and the procession of Buster's genuinely jaw-dropping stunts, some of the most memorable moments are the little kisses between the two of them. There's a real love story tucked in there, which is why you're not even too downhearted at the ending- the big failure, the house destroyed, the walk away together down the dusty road: you know they've got each other, and everything's going to be just fine.

Number, Please? (Lloyd 1920)

Searing and powerful indictment of 1920s telephone culture. This is great actually, a really good short, full of novel camerawork (all the merry-go-round suff- that's first-rate) and honest-to-goodness laughs. It starts actually with the biggest laugh of them all- tyrng to forget the lost love of his life, Harold seeks adventure on a rollercoaster- sitting in the last car he finds himself being hit by the flying hats of all the chaps from the cars in front. Well it plays better than it sounds, trust me.
It's another great silent fairgound film, this- they're always fascinating even when they're not funny, because you're being given such a delightful snapshot of the idle pleasures of another age. Glimpsing all the advertisements and the fashions- it's a joy watching this stuff, like a little time capsule. Smplest of plots- a girl, two rivals, and a dog. Who needs anything else? This was from the Mildred Davis era, and she's fine here, though a little under-used. Lloyd had some of the greatest leading ladies of the era, I think that goes without saying, but Mildred here is a cipher and nothing more. There's no character, no subtlety. She really is just The Girl and that's it. Even the otherwise rather anonymous Roy Brooks, the Rival, has the potential for a bit of back-story, a bit of hidden intrigue, but the Girl is... nothing. And, granted, perhaps that's intentional- there is no happy romantic conclusion here, because, after all, there was never any particular spark between them in the first place. The Boy is back on his fairground rides, a 1920s emo, Mildred and Roy and her cute little dog take a balloon-ride off into the sunset.
The central scene, the scene that gives the film its name, has the Boy trying to put a call through to the Girl's mother. It is a long scene with a simple premise, but it doesn't get tiresome, and again you're getting a little glimpse of a world that's long gone now.

An Eastern Westerner (Lloyd 1920)

A more rogueish Boy than we have become used to- rich and spoilt, he is sent West by his exasperated father to build character and prove himself a man. And out West he meets Mildred and her own ailing father, and character is built and the man is proven.
It's a strong Western this, though short on outright hilarity. The opening scene with Harold shimmying the night away at a 'shimmie dancing prohibited' nightclub is a quick glimpse of decadent civilization before the Boy heads off to horses, dust and gunfire. Here, Noah Young rules the town- big, burly and bullying, and with his own eye on Mildred Davis. Well, as if...
But the Boy not only lets down his father and shimmies when shimmying aint on, he's also not averse to cheating at cards, and while we're happy he gets his girl, it's hard to particularly care about this character. There was still some streamlining to be done I think before Lloyd completely nailed him.
The best moment is probably Harold practising his lassooing skills for the Girl's amusement- even here though the smile you'll have is a wry one rather than a carefree one. It's a neat film, well done, but it's not the one that's going to make you a Harold Lloyd fan.