Absolutely manic Larry Semon short. What I know about Larry Semon: he made a notoriously indulgent and bloated 'Wizard of Oz'. What I can surmise about Larry Semon fom this: for a while at least he must have been massively popular. It's not wholly apparent why that would be from watching 'The Sawmill'. An exceedingly ugly and charmless man (well that's how he seems here- I'm just saying what I see...) he seems to be a cross between Pee-Wee Herman and Harry Langdon, an excitable fool who wins through. And gets the girl.
A sawmill worker in this, he has long and wild encounters with the foreman and then with the mill owner, all the while getting off with the mill owner's daughter. Who has no taste whatsoever. It's dizzying stuff, and never even pauses for breath, but there are some very good visual gags in there, and some visual gags that must have taken a while to set up too. They tend to be gags you nod your head just slightly in appreciation of though, rather than actually laugh at. Damnit everyone's trying so hard. There are stunts and explosions everywhere you look, and everyone working at this mill seems to have a license to kill.
Hardy is the mill foreman, but gets up to nothing remarkable here. The dog's quite good.
As ever I'll just note that as I watch more Larry Semon films and gain more of an appreciation of the character he plays I may have to come back and watch this again. Unlikely though.
Showing posts with label 1922. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1922. Show all posts
Saturday, 14 April 2012
Friday, 6 April 2012
The Frozen North (Keaton 1922)
I knew nothing about this one before watching it, and I'm not sure how much more I really know about it now. I don't think I particularly liked it, but it threw me- I was expecting 'just another' Keaton short, with all that implies, and 'The Frozen North' manifestly isn't that.
Buster is a kind of arctic evil genius, with Joe Roberts as his loyal henchman- it's a melodrama pastiche with everyone playing against type but frankly it's more... interesting than it is enjoyable. We are thrown straight into the middle of an ongoing scenario (though given the film's length I'm guessing there may be a scene or two missing somewhere along the way) with Buster attempting to hold up a saloon single-handedly and then shooting a couple of lovers dead after mistaking the girl for his wife and her house for his own house. And of course by this point you're well aware that you're not getting a typical Buster Keaton product, but you're still not entirely sure what it is you are getting. Buster's a cheater, a lothario, a villain through and through, and yes of course it's all revealed to be a dream, and of course we know he's sending stuff up, but it's still a shock to the system. A shock that would perhaps be easier to take if it were just a tad funnier.
And this is where my ignorance of the source material for his pastiche is probably doing Buster a disservice- all I can do is imagine the wild overacting and the outlandish scenarios in the films he is taking down a peg or two: I can guess what they were like and I can guess why this film was probably funnier in 1922 than it is now.
There's an overplayed and predictable ice-fishing scene though that I'm damned sure was just as tiresome ninety years ago as it seems today.
Buster is a kind of arctic evil genius, with Joe Roberts as his loyal henchman- it's a melodrama pastiche with everyone playing against type but frankly it's more... interesting than it is enjoyable. We are thrown straight into the middle of an ongoing scenario (though given the film's length I'm guessing there may be a scene or two missing somewhere along the way) with Buster attempting to hold up a saloon single-handedly and then shooting a couple of lovers dead after mistaking the girl for his wife and her house for his own house. And of course by this point you're well aware that you're not getting a typical Buster Keaton product, but you're still not entirely sure what it is you are getting. Buster's a cheater, a lothario, a villain through and through, and yes of course it's all revealed to be a dream, and of course we know he's sending stuff up, but it's still a shock to the system. A shock that would perhaps be easier to take if it were just a tad funnier.
And this is where my ignorance of the source material for his pastiche is probably doing Buster a disservice- all I can do is imagine the wild overacting and the outlandish scenarios in the films he is taking down a peg or two: I can guess what they were like and I can guess why this film was probably funnier in 1922 than it is now.
There's an overplayed and predictable ice-fishing scene though that I'm damned sure was just as tiresome ninety years ago as it seems today.
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