One
Week (1920)
Buster
and his new bride receive a build-it-yourself house kit as a wedding gift, and
when her ex-beau sabotages the building process, the house they wind up with is
one-of-a-kind. The whole building is
crooked, the front door is on the second story, and it’s prone to spinning like
a merry-go-round when the wind picks up.
Absolutely hilarious, not to mention an engineering marvel.
Neighbors (1920)
Buster
is in love with the girl across the fence, but the pair is kept apart by their
squabbling parents. The sheer number of
gags Buster mines from a fence and a clothesline is incredible, and his persistent
efforts to be with his girl are both enterprising and remarkably agile. The standing-on-shoulders sequence alone is
astounding. And even simpler gags, like
a pair of broken suspenders, are golden in Buster’s capable hands.
The
Playhouse (1921)
This
short is best known for the technical masterpiece of its opening sequence, in
which Buster plays everyone onscreen:
playhouse performers, orchestra musicians, and audience members, at one
point duplicating himself nine times in a single shot. It’s so amazing that people forget the rest,
which is a shame, because it’s excellent.
Highlights include some fantastic twin gags and Buster’s dead-on impression of a monkey. Honestly, if you squint, you can’t tell the
difference.
The
Boat (1921)
Why did
this make the list? Damfino! I love that this is a silent film whose biggest
laugh is a pun told via telegraph – it’s so Buster. Beyond that, the story of Buster and his
family’s catastrophe-fraught maiden voyage on a homemade boat is
fantastic. Everything about the storm
sequence is made of win, and you can never go wrong watching Buster try to
lower a lifeboat.
Cops (1922)
Chase scenes are
Buster’s catnip, and this short is one giant excuse to have Buster flee from an
entire police force. Thanks to a series
of mishaps, he collects more and more uniformed pursuers and unleashes all
manner of nimble tricks to avoid them.
There are street cars and fire escapes involved, and a sequence with a
ladder that will leave you gaping in amazement at Buster’s dexterity – talk
about iconic.
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