SHERLOCK, JR
It’s easy to be patronising about the special effects and techniques used during the silent era. Viewers are much more aware these days of how movies are made, and the DVD generation has grown up on “making of” documentaries that explain (sometimes in painstaking detail) the tricks of the trade. So it’s refreshing to watch, say, SHERLOCK, JR and realise that you still can’t figure out how some of the gags were pulled off!
The plot is of course very simple. Buster plays a wannabe detective who is framed by the Sheik (Ward Crane) for stealing the watch of his girlfriend’s father (played by Joe Keaton – in actual fact, Buster’s father!). Disowned by the family and spurned by his girl (Kathryn McGuire), he goes back to his day job as a projectionist in a New York cinema – and promptly falls asleep on the job. An incorporeal Keaton splits from the flesh-and-blood version and the dream-Buster then notices that the characters appearing on the film he is projecting have transformed into the protagonists from his recent real life experience, and he joins them in a tale of intrigue, attempted murder and stolen pearls.
From the moment Keaton steps into the screen (an effect that owes more to the power of suggestion than anything else) to start the film-within-a-film antics this movie takes off and flies. Keaton’s trademark dangerous stunts are present in a film packed full of special effects that must have seemed literally impossible at the time. One of the most impressive occurs when Keaton first enters the screen and becomes part of the “film” being shown in the cinema. He remains constant while the scenery changes instantly to other settings, so for example, in one shot he is walking across a street and in the next he has to stop himself before falling off the edge of a cliff. The effect is so seamless and believable that you wonder how the hell they pulled it off in an age before blue screens. It turns out a theodolite was used to map Keaton’s distance from the screen and exact position in each of the shots, a process that sounds like absolute hell to pull off.
The detective thriller “Hearts and Pearls” (the film that the dream-Keaton walks into) is a lot of fun, too. The Sheik (no, I don’t know why he’s called that either) is now a pearl thief and lives in a mansion with his collaborator the Butler. They scheme several ways to dispatch Keaton (now officially Sherlock Jr in his dream incarnation) that go awry in different ways, including an elaborate plot to blow him up in a game of pool with an explosive 13-ball. Keaton, in several lengthy shots, hits the pool balls all over the place except for that all-important ringer, much to the villains’ dismay. It may be predictable, but by God, it’s still funny!
The obligatory stunts are absolute showstoppers. If you’ve ever wondered how Keaton never broke his neck performing some of the stunts, then this film has the answer – he nearly did. There’s a scene where he hangs off a pipe from a water tower. The pipe lowers and then water rushes out, sending Keaton to the ground and fracturing his neck in the process. It wasn’t until the 30’s that he found this out from an x-ray, but he suffered severe headaches after this stunt for quite some time. That’s just one of the death defying acts in this film; rest assured, there are plenty more. What’s more, in one scene he doubles someone else for a stunt (falling off a moving motorcycle) while someone doubles Keaton. It’s all very well doing your own stunts, but when you have to do other people’s as well…!
Keaton himself took sole directorial duties on this 1924 film, and the move toward feature length films resulted in a much higher quality product than some of his shorts. The only disappointment comes when, about 40 minutes in, Buster wakes from his dream and the picture winds up. It could easily have sustained another reel, and the feeling you get watching this is that it’s too long for a short and not long enough for a feature!
The version currently available has music recorded in 1993 by the Club Foot Orchestra, and it does pose a few anachronistic problems. Although most of the themes played are along the lines of jazz music that feels contemporary to the era of the film, there is the occasional and baffling use of an electric guitar. There’s also a bluesy slide guitar piece that really sounds modern and out of place and a section that sounds rather like 60’s surf music! However, slight niggles aside, the group actually perform some outstandingly fitting music, and the clarinet piece in particular is very haunting. Anyway, just give thanks that those film-destroying comedy sound effects that tarnish so many silent films are not used, that’s what I say.
Astoundingly, SHERLOCK, JR was not a great critical success on release – Variety called it “about as funny as a hospital operating room”. It seems a lot of Keaton’s films were only really appreciated from the 50’s onwards (even THE GENERAL was criticised on release for not having enough laughs). Anyone interested in film and filmmaking should definitely have a look at the techniques and tricks that Buster pulls off with ease in the infancy of cinema. You may come away feeling humbled.
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