Top Five Gags: The Frozen North

*Spoilers.*

August 28, 1922—the day The Frozen North was released. This can be a hard one to take the first time you see it. Buster is parodying William S. Hart, an actor whose films I’ve never seen, doing his take on a cruel rake who causes trouble amid a little shameless melodrama (those thick glycerin tears!) As such, it’s very different from Buster’s normal work and features a very different sort of character for him. But even while parodying someone’s else’s shtick, Buster’s personality still comes through in a number of gags.

 

The Stickup

Buster wants to hold up a saloon, but he’s fresh out of ammo. Instead, he finds a poster of a gun-wielding masked outlaw and cuts out the figure, propping it up in the window of the saloon. Then, while his cardboard “partner” keeps his gun trained on everyone, Buster heads inside to collect the loot. It goes well for him… until someone with a little liquid courage tries to knock the gun out of the outlaw’s hand and realizes it’s just a cutout.

 

Fooling the Police

This is a character where casual sexism is part of the point—it’s baked into Hart’s film persona, and so Buster spends the short being pretty callous to women and treating them entirely on his terms. In this scene, his wife has gotten knocked out (he didn’t hit her, by the way, a vase fell on her head,) and the lawman has come a-calling. Thinking quick, Buster turns on the record player and picks up the unconscious wife, dancing her around the room so the officer thinks there’s nothing afoot. And just to hammer the point home, Buster dismissively drops her back on the floor as soon as the lawman leaves.

 

Walking Through the Snow

Buster has spotted another beautiful lady he’s got his eye on (like I said, sexist,) so he puts on a crisp white suit, grabs a stylish cane, and sets out to meet her. However, as he trudges through the deep snow, he doesn’t quite cut the suave figure he was hoping for here. Great bit of physical comedy.

 

Snowshoeing

More “walking around in the snow”-based humor. Buster doesn’t have snowshoes, but he does have two guitars. This is a terrific sight gag, and the way Buster clomps through the snow with his feet shoved into guitars is simply *chef’s kiss*.

 

Ice Fishing

While ice fishing, Buster accidentally hooks the line of the guy fishing the hole behind him. This is superbly executed, their poles alternately rising and lowering as each man wrestles with the “big catch” he thinks he has on the line. When Buster proves the victor, giving his line a final heave, the other man is yanked into his hole in the ice, and Buster has to fish him out. Impeccable timing, and fantastic to watch.