25. Seven Chances (1925)

Directed By Buster Keaton

Synopsis

A man (Keaton) is facing bankruptcy in his company and needs a fast cash injection. Meanwhile his grandfather dies and he inherits 7 million dollars. A respectable amount. The catch is that he needs to be married by 7 o'clock of his 27th birthday. This happens to be the day he receives the news! Keaton is actually in love with a girl called Mary. With typical male tact Keaton proposes marriage by saying that he has to marry some girl by seven. Mary tells him to shove it, although she does love him. Mary's mother convinces her to give Keaton a chance to explain, and calls him at work. Due to a connection problem she can hear him in the office saying that he won't marry any other girl and she realises that he wants to marry her because he loves her. She sends her servant to give Keaton a message telling him that she'll marry him. Meanwhile Keaton, after being convinced by his buisness associate, is attempting to get married to whomever he can. Eventually his friend posts an advert in the evening newspaper.Hilarity ensues.

At 5 o'clock the church chosen for the ceremony is filled with brides, the message from Mary never arrives. The priest comes out looks at the church and thinks this is a joke. The brides turn on Keaton for having fooled them, and Hell Hath No Fury Like 500 Women Scorned. Keaton runs away in a characteristicly complex fashion and manages to get to Mary just before 7 and get married! All's well that ends well.

Review

Another very fun Buster Keaton film. This one is more plot oriented than the previous films reviewed here. This is at the same time a good and a bad thing. It is good, because let's face it plots are useful in films. It's bad because it leaves less time for Keaton's amazing stuntwork, which is really what you want to see in his films. No one watches Jackie Chan films for their depth.

Still Keaton manages to save the film with an amazing sequence towards the end, which really tops off the film. The plot itself isn't bad at all, it's not the most original thing obviously, but it's not badly executed. Keaton is an excelent actor as well as choreographer and stuntman. Some things about the film were not that good however, but that is more from an ideological point of view (there's some light racism and blacked up actors around, as well as one anti-semitic depiction) than from a filmmaking point of view.

Keaton is as close as you can get to perfect comedic directing, acting, choreography and timing in the film medium. He is simply amazing and there isn't much more I can say about this film that I haven't already said about his previous films. Let me state again that this guy has the most physical stamina I've ever seen on screen. If you get this film look for the part in which he is running down a hill trying to escape rocks in a landslide (yes, Indiana Jones Style) and see how the guy runs. And those are wide shots. They're not shooting his face to show fright while he's a studio and then changing it to a rock. It's all real, man!

Buy it at Amazon UK or US.

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

There was a terrible remake of this with Chris O'Donnel, Rene Zellweger, Brooke Shields and Mariah Carey... called The Bachelor. That's not on my list.