If I
recall correctly, this was my definite favorite of the Columbia shorts the
first time through. Sly and funny, with
gags that build wonderfully to a terrific climax. It’s not perfect, but it’s probably as close
to it as this era of Buster’s career gets (a few spoilers.)
The
Civil War has just broken out, and Buster plays one of two brothers eager to
join up. Unfortunately for them, they
live in Kentucky and the war is more confusing in the border states – they
mistakenly wind up with opposing uniforms, and each one’s attempt to protect
the other from their own army just puts them in the crosshairs of both. The situation gets increasingly dicey as they
try to figure out how to get on the same side.
A neat
premise set up and executed really well.
Although it’s a classic comedy-of-errors scenario and thus gets more
tangled the more the brothers try to get out of it, the basic nuts and bolts are
pretty straightforward. That, combined
with a fairly contained set and and a narrow timeframe, keeps the story nice
and tidy. It gives the short room to
play with recurring gags, like each man locking up his “prisoner” brother in
turn but needing to borrow the key from the ostensible prisoner to do so.
To me,
it’s a short that really feels like Buster, which always helps when you’re
venturing outside his independent work.
There’s the patented Buster ingenuity, the klutziness-turned-heroics (he
does a great stumbling-under-the-force-of-his-love routine early in the short,
and while, later on, he’s not as impressively athletic as he is in his silent
films, he still pulls out a few stops,) and a couple of horse gags that are
just pure Buster – what was it about Buster and a good horse gag?
My
favorite bit, though, is a hilarious piece of acting from Buster. For reasons that I won’t spoil, it becomes
necessary for him to fake his death (after a slightly delayed reaction,) and
it’s straight out of the
(over)dramatic silent actor playbook.
Just ludicrously funny. By this
time, I’m assuming that silent-movie acting had gotten a reputation for being
silly and overdone, so there were probably a good number of films that made fun
of the old style. But Buster can make
fun of it so well precisely because
he can do it so authentically – he brings that old-school skill to the table,
and he kills it!
Obviously,
the Civil War backdrop brings The General
to mind, but although I really enjoy the short, it goes without saying that
it’s no General. Don’t go in expecting a comic masterpiece,
but as far as inconsequential bits of fun go, this one holds together quite
handily.
Warnings
Slapstick
violence and some gunplay.
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