Top Five Gags: Cops

*Spoilers.*

March 11^th, 1922—the day Cops was released. This is of course a classic, though I always forget how short the iconic cop chase really is. While Buster has some run-ins with police officers throughout, it’s not until the last five minutes that the full-blown Keystone Cop pursuit starts. But it’s iconic for a reason—the majority of my favorite Cops gags come from that chase scene.

 

Turn Signals

Buster is trying to drive a horse and cart through the city. At first, he uses hand signals to announce his turns, but when a dog tries to bite his outstretched arm, he pulls on a boxing glove to protect his hand. He then does one better, attaching the glove to an extendable device on the side of his cart to make a mechanical signaling arm. This works great… until he passes a policeman directing traffic in the crosswalk. Buster manages to accidentally punch him twice with the boxing glove in less than a minute!

 

A Disguise

And it’s all chase-scene gags from here on out! Once Buster has the whole police force on his tail, he employs all kinds of evasions and deceptions to avoid capture. In this delightful sight gag, he clips his tie under his nose to disguise himself with an impromptu mustache. Hee!

 

Hiding in the Trunk

Buster had abandoned his horse and cart, along with all the furniture he was hauling, in the street when the cops started chasing him. Here, he circles back around and hides in a trunk as the cops rush by. Unbeknownst to him, one officer has observed him getting into the trunk. The cop locks it but doesn’t realize he hasn’t actually trapped Buster—the bottom has fallen out of the trunk, so when the cop tries to lift it up, Buster crawls right out.

 

Fast Getaway

Classic. Buster runs down an alley away from the cops, then grabs onto a passing car to get whisked away! He really was a marvel. It’s a shot that’s as whimsical as it is impressive.

 

The Ladder Seesaw

Another very famous gag. Buster has cops coming towards him from both sides of a wooden fence. There’s a tall ladder propped against the fence, so he climbs it, turning it into a seesaw that comes down on either side of the fence as he tries to avoid the cops. My favorite bit in this sequence is when he has a cop pulling on the ladder from the opposite side. Buster is trying to bring the “seesaw” down but he isn’t heavy enough, and he bounces up and down on his end, not realizing there are more cops creeping up behind him on his side of the fence, ready to grab the ladder and pull him down. So fun and imaginative!

Cops (1922)

Gotta love Cops – it’s been one of my favorite Buster shorts for quite a while.  With sharp humor, inventive storytelling, and fantastic stunts, it’s a must-see for any budding Buster Keaton fan.

Charged by the girl he loves to become a “big business man,” Buster’s attempts to come up in the world aren’t exactly what he’d hope for.  Despite stumbling into some early luck, he then proceeds to get hoodwinked, finds himself saddled with a monumentally uncooperative equine partner, and, thanks to some horrendous wrong-place-wrong-time syndrome, winds up the subject of a truly epic police manhunt.  Just another Tuesday, right?

Any discussion of Cops obviously has to start with the colossal chase sequence, featuring a veritable horde of the Keystone boys in blue.  Watching the short this time around, I was struck by a few things.  First, the chase is quite a bit shorter than I tend to think, covering only a third of the 18-minute short.  And second, having recently reviewed a number of Buster’s other independent shorts, I think the cop chases in The Goat, Neighbors, and Daydreams actually have a higher proportion of really creative evasions on Buster’s part.  I think, due to the sheer volume of officers here, Buster is able to get away with just using the sight gag of his little fellow being chased by legions of cops, so it’s a bit short on the really original, Bustery escape stuff.

Which isn’t to sell the chase scene short.  Buster still gets in some excellent licks.  He nicely subverts the “hide behind a traffic cop” technique he’s used before, and the ladder gag is a comic masterpiece.  His final triumph might come off as a little too simple, but I just love it; it’s very sly and endlessly Buster.  (Also, not for nothing, out of all the times Buster has had to flee from officers of the law, this short gives them the most credible reason to be after him.  Not that it’s actually Buster’s fault, but an unfortunate mishap makes everyone very understandably think him an immensely shady character who needs to be stopped.)

The preceding two-thirds of the short are nothing to sneeze at, either.  The gags and story flow into each other really well, informing one another, building the humor, and moving the plot along.  Everything involving Buster and the horse cart is amazing, my personal favorite moments being the mechanical turn-signal and Buster’s restless pacing on the moving cart.  Everything just comes together splendidly, making for a really satisfying viewer experience.

This short also features – you guessed it! – Virginia Fox and Big Joe Roberts.  Both have almost ridiculously-small parts, but it’s nice to see them all the same.  Fox is Buster’s rather imperious girl, while Roberts plays the police chief.

Warnings

Slapstick violence and an act of anarchy.