Top Five Gags: Seven Chances

I must’ve been sleeping on the job, because I missed the 100-year anniversary of the release of Seven Chances. It came out on March 15, 1925, but I’ll play a little catchup and write about it now. Seven Chances doesn’t have nearly as many phenomenal comic sequences as some of Buster’s films do.  However, the one major comedic set piece, the bridal chase, is quite the doozy, and three of my top five gags are from that epic chase scene.

 

An Important Sit-Down

Seven Chances feels rather generic at times as a film, but this little throwaway bit of business is so Buster.  Once the lawyer finally gets Jimmie’s attention, Jimmie and his partner sit the lawyer down to talk.  In tandem, they bring chairs to set on either side of him and then both sit on the edge of the desk, resting their feet on the chair rungs.  Ha!

 

Proposal on the Go

While some of the proposals are pretty fun, this one is easily the best.  Getting desperate, Jimmie asks a passing motorist to marry him and waits so distractedly for his answer that he drives his car half-up a tree.  Great timing, even better visual.

 

What’s the Time?

Frantic to get to Mary’s house before 7 (and before the brides tear him limb from limb,) Jimmie is trying to figure what time it is, and the universe is plotting against him.  A few terrific gags here, especially when Jimmie stops at a store window filled with clocks and is dismayed to see that each one displays a different time: it’s a repair shop.

 

Throwing Bricks

Here’s a fun sight gag in the middle of the chase.  A bricklayer is putting up a wall, and as the brides pass by, one of them stops to grab one of the still-wet bricks to throw at Jimmie.  A few more avail themselves of the wall, and then the entire crowd, and when the brides swarm away, the whole wall has disappeared.

 

Rolling Boulders

Of course this one was on here—it’s the crowning jewel of Seven Chances.  The brides have been chasing Jimmie over hill and dale, and he’s tearing down a steep hill when he accidentally dislodges a few small rocks with his feet.  They in turn dislodge bigger rocks, which dislodge bigger rocks, and soon, Jimmie has a fleet of stones on his tail, ranging in size from pebbles to boulders, as he races to the bottom of the hill.  This gag started as a mistake.  In the initial cut of the film, Buster didn’t notice that he accidentally nudged a few rocks loose in his run down the hill, not until a test audience noticed it and thought it was hilarious.  Always someone willing to improve his work, and never one to do things by half measures, Buster had hundreds of fake rocks made and arranged on the hill in order to shoot the sequence as it is now.

Seven Chances (1925)

In terms of Buster Keaton’s independent features, this one is on the lower end of the totem pole but still quite enjoyable.  It’s an unusual picture for Buster, a bit farcical (he didn’t come up with it – it’s based on a play, and it was essentially assigned to him.)  Still, he works pretty well within a rather different genre, and he of course infuses it with his trademark Buster-ness.

Buster plays Jimmie Shannon, a down-and-out businessman on the verge of bankruptcy who discovers he’s the recipient of an extraordinary inheritance, provided he’s married by 7 p.m. on his 27^th birthday.  As generally happens in these kinds of movies, he receives notice of the inheritance on his 27^th birthday, so time is of the essence.  After bungling his proposal to Mary, the girl he’s loved for ages – it turns out women don’t like it when you tell them you just have to married to somebody by the end of the day – Jimmie is convinced by his business partner to try his luck elsewhere.  It’s a race against the clock down the altar.

Quibbles first.  The initial misunderstanding that comes between Jimmie and Mary is a thin basis on which to found all the hijinks that come after, and it’s stretched thinner still by the contrivances that keep them from speaking to each other and clearing the air.  I’m usually willing to give some leeway to “if these people would just have a two-minute conversation, all their problems would be gone” plot finagling, but when it strains credibility too much, I start to roll my eyes.

That being said, Buster does a fine job making something that’s not his sort of film.  Jimmie’s varied, increasingly outlandish attempts to secure himself any sort of bride are very funny, and pretty impressive from a cinematic perspective.  I imagine the original stage farce is very dialogue-heavy, talking its way through each disastrous proposal, but Buster deftly avoids most of that.  Instead, after the first couple of brief conversations, he tells his story visually.  No need to repeat what we already know he’s saying, so he keeps the story rolling with amusing sight gags and priceless reactions.  The most memorable proposal is probably with the woman driving alongside Buster, but I’m also a fan of the written proposal and the hatcheck girl.

The most Buster-y element, though?  This film is about half chase scene.  Seriously – assorted escalating complications ultimately result in Buster running pell-mell down the street while being pursued by a horde of women in white veils, and in perfect Buster fashion, the whole sequence is filled with inventive touches and terrific gags.  He employs clever taxi tricks, a crane, and a tour de force comic scene running from over a thousand fake boulders.  And, since he’s also fleeing under a severe time crunch, there’s a delightful gag of Buster surrounded by broken time pieces in a clock repair shop trying to figure out if it’s after 7 yet.  So, certainly not his best, but a good time for Buster Keaton fans nonetheless.

Warnings

Slapstick violence and a bit of unfortunate racial humor.