"Sherlock Jr."
Reviewed by Heather Picker
Directed by Buster Keaton. Story by Jean Havez, Joe Mitchell, and Clyde Bruckman. Starring Buster Keaton, with Kathryn McGuire. 1924, 45 min., Not Rated.
"Sherlock Jr." features extraordinary visual trickery and yet another charming Buster Keaton performance. Keaton is a projectionist who is timidly and successfully vying for the affections of a girl (Kathryn McGuire) until her father's watch disappears and he is framed by her other suitor, a criminal. Reality and fantasy are masterfully interwoven as the dejected projectionist, whose aspiration is to become a detective, winds up in the movie he is playing for a packed theater. Keaton breezes through a series of astounding shots with an equally impressive ease.
The forty-five minute running time flies by, leaving you enchanted and pondering the implications of the projectionist's reliance upon cinematic example to interact with McGuire. Keaton's father, Joe, plays the girl's father. Jean Havez, Joe Mitchell, and Clyde Bruckman, who are responsible for the story, also wrote "The Navigator" (1924), a Keaton classic in which McGuire has a part, and his "Seven Chances" (1925). Cinematography by Byron Houck and Elgin Lessley, who worked on the two aforementioned films, as well.
© Heather Picker, 1999
http://www.thatmoviesite.8m.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews