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. 

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.