This Buster Keaton film, in length resting somewhere between a short and a feature, is utterly splendid. Aside from being fantastically funny, it offers up stunning-for-the-time film techniques, some remarkable gags, and a great, out-of-the-ordinary performance from Buster.
In this film, Buster plays a hapless young movie projectionist/budding detective. He practices examining fingerprints between running reels and sweeping the theater, and when he gives his girl the best engagement ring he can afford, his magnifying glass is there to aid her attempts to see the diamond. When everything goes wrong for him as, naturally, it does, a quick snooze in the projection room dreams up life as a film in which he gets to be the hero.
This is where the big fun begins. Up to this point, Buster has been playing his usual tenaciously-resourceful but incurably-unlucky character, a little fumbling in general and pretty shy around women, but good-hearted and clever at his core. In the movie-within-a-dream-within-a-movie, however, he becomes Sherlock Jr., world-famous sleuth and all-around cool customer. Though he still has a few moments of cluelessness and clumsiness (despite his renowned deductive skills, he consistently fails to recognize his assistant in disguise,) this is an altogether different character for Buster. Sherlock Jr. Is smooth and confident, with a keen eye and an easy suaveness with the ladies. He's wonderfully enjoyable, and Buster does a superb job playing him.
The gags are a delight, ranging from the simple (Buster takes the instruction "follow your man closely" to absolutely ridiculous lengths) to the impressive (he rides the handlebars of a driverless motor bike with great aplomb.). On the directing side of things, we have some very savvy bits of filmmaking, especially at the start of Buster's dream. In an extended sequence, he steps into the movie screen and struggles to find his footing in surroundings that constantly flicker with change - he steps off a curb on a city street just as it becomes a rocky outcrop in the wilderness, that sort of thing. The transitions are seamless, and Buster never misses a beat; I can't imagine what audiences in the 20s must have thought.
From start to finish, a tip-top little film. Funny and smart, outlandish and sweet. What more could you want?
Warnings
Slapstick violence, and a little smoking and drinking.
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