Some Thoughts on Sherlock Jr.

*Spoilers.*

May 11, 1924—the day Sherlock Jr. was released. Every time I watch this film, I’m struck by how much I love it.  Not only is it an all-around great film with incredible camera work and top-notch gags/stunts from Buster, it also features a very different type of performance from Buster, when his projectionist character falls asleep and imagines himself as a renowned detective in the second half the movie.  Sherlock Jr. himself is a big part of what makes this film wonderful, and he’s what I want to look at today.

In many ways, Sherlock Jr. is everything the projectionist (and, by extension, most of Buster’s characters) is not.  Buster’s usual character is dogged and rootable and endearing, as surprisingly athletic as he is hopelessly clumsy, but what he’s not is smooth.  Sherlock Jr., on the other hand, has suaveness in spades.  Once the dream sequence kicks off, you know from the moment he enters the house with his top hat and cane that you’re seeing a different side of Buster.  And it’s not just the spiffy digs (after all, Buster’s played plenty of dandies)—it’s the way he carries himself with absolute confidence, none of the loping shamble of his ordinary character.

On that front, I can’t even quite put my finger on why it’s so different.  Buster’s typical character isn’t exactly insecure, or even awkward; usually, he’s fumbling and a bit shy, but he’s also very determined and unflappable in the face of ridiculous odds.  He’s not, however, like Sherlock Jr.  It’s all in the walk, the astute gaze, the way he acts like he owns a room. 

And what’s more, he has the skills to back it up.  Sherlock Jr. was dreamed up between the eras of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Ian Fleming, but he’s somehow equal parts Holmes and Bond.  I love his easy command, the way he so frequently owns everybody with this no-big-deal blasé attitude which makes it clear he does this sort of thing all the time.  This quality shows up numerous times—blithely picking the pocket of the crook who takes his watch from him, making the seamless transition from road to aquatic getaway—but it’s best displayed in the billiard game.  Sherlock Jr. sinks every ball in a series of wild shots, neatly avoiding the ball that the bad guys know to be weaponized with a concealed explosive (little do they know, Sherlock Jr. is wise to them and switches the balls when they’re not looking,) and then coolly saunters off, leaving the villains gaping at his feat.

Of course, this same scene also offers up what love best about Sherlock Jr.:  he’s almost equal parts adept and inept.  Leaving the house, he produces the deadly billiard and tosses it casually in the air, but he misses catching it and has to flail around, juggling it pretty wildly to keep it from hitting the ground and blowing him up.  We see this again and again.  His suspect easily leads him off-course, trapping him on a rooftop, but he handily rides a descending railroad-crossing arm back down to street level.  He pulls off the incredible ride on the handlebars of the driverless motorbike, but that’s only because it takes him so long to realize the driver has fallen off.  He’s entirely unable to recognize his own assistant in disguise, and when he and the girl sail across the lake in the floating cab of a car, he doesn’t seem to notice it sinking until they’re already fully in the water.

Since Sherlock Jr. is the projectionist’s dream in which he gets to be the hero, maybe it would have made for sense for him to be perfect, but I love that he’s not.  It says something pretty special about Buster, I think, that the Holmesian proto-Bond smooth customer he creates still makes so many easy mistakes and, despite his effortless cool, is still so relatable and human.

Sherlock Jr.: Top Five Gags

It’s not very long, but it has an awful lot of laughs.  These are my top picks from the delightful Sherlock Jr.

Lost Dollars

Let’s face it – if Buster finds a dollar while he’s sweeping, of course the owner is going to come back for it, along with someone else to claim another of the two dollars he already had, and he’s naturally going to miss the wallet stuffed with cash in the same pile.  My favorite part is Buster asking the first woman to describe her lost dollar and then using the same descriptive gestures when the second woman comes along.

Handholding Chicken

Equal parts sweet, adorable, and hilarious.  I love the timid way Buster and his girl inch their hands toward one another, his skittish withdrawal.  I love how determinedly she slams her hand back down, and when he does the same (on top of hers,) their identical looks of alarm are priceless.  Bonus points for the engagement ring featuring the world’s tiniest diamond and Buster being prepared with his magnifying glass.

Shadow Your Man Closely

First of all, Buster does an expert job of staying right on his mark’s tail.  I don’t know if it was perfectly choreographed or if he just follows the other guy’s cues so well, but their twin movements are great.  I especially like when the suspect picks up a cigarette butt, gives it a puff, and flicks it over his shoulder, where Buster catches it and does the exact same thing.

Deadly Billiards

Such a great part of the Sherlock Jr. dream sequence.  The villains’ obvious terror of the explosive billiard ball goes wonderfully with Buster’s oblivious nonchalance, and I adore the lackey’s non-verbal play-by-play on how each of Buster’s shots just misses the lethal ball.  Capped by Buster privately revealing the swapped-out balls.

The Handlebar Getaway

A classic.  Buster loses his driver early on in his dramatic getaway but has no idea, and he blithely careens through all manner of dangers perched on the handlebars of the driverless motorbike.  The whole scene has such expertly-timed gags, from the trucks pulling in to fill the gap of the unfinished bridge, to the felled tree in the road being blown up at the perfect moment (not to mention, all the long shots really are Buster sitting on the handlebars of a motorbike and steering it through a crowded scene – he was a wonder!)

Sherlock Jr. (1924)

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.