USA, 18 min
Directed by: Edward F. Cline, Buster Keaton
Written by: Edward F. Cline, Buster Keaton
Starring: Buster Keaton, Joe Roberts, Virginia Fox, Edward F. Cline
Lying in bed with a sore throat, I needed some cheering up. Buster Keaton didn't let me down. Cops (1922) is generally typical of the comedian's two-reelers of the early 1920s, though with a lesser emphasis on the ingenious gadgets exhibited in One Week (1920) and The High Sign (1921). The film opens with Keaton apparently looking through prison bars at his sweetheart, until a clarifying shot reveals that it is merely the girl's front gate {Harold Lloyd seized this visual gag for the opening of Safety Last! (1923), but he had a right to it – one scene in Keaton's film, whether unintentionally or not, resembles the manner in which a prop explosion decapitated Lloyd's hand in 1919}. After convincing himself to become a businessman, Keaton's Young Man goes on to show that he has the worst luck in the world. First, he is bamboozled into purchasing another family's furniture (by Steve Murphy, the pickpocket in Chaplin's The Circus (1928)), and then gets caught up in a police parade, where, ever a victim of circumstance, he is wrongly accused of performing an act of terrorism.Keaton loved ending his film's with an overblown chase sequence, whether it be the stampeding cattle in Go West (1925) or the stampeding women in Seven Chances (1925). In Cops, our hero is pursued by hundreds of uniformed policemen, swinging batons and tripping over themselves. Here, Keaton really earns his title as the "Great Stone Face." The chaos and confusion of the pursuit is amusing enough, but even more so is Keaton's extraordinary lack of facial expression – he just runs, staring blankly ahead, like a man who expects his problems to dissipate as soon as he wakes up. Also incredible is the performer's physical dexterity, as he flips back and forth over a tall ladder balanced precariously on either side of a fence. Also watch out for Keaton regular Joe Roberts as the Police Chief, and recurring co-star Virginia Fox in a disappointingly brief role as our hero's love interest. Even an aching throat can't dampen the chuckles in this excellent comedy short. If laughter is, indeed, the best medicine, then I should be better by the morning.
8/10
During a break in the filming of The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice (1952), Orson Welles takes the time to recount a creepy "tall tale" allegedly told to him by a broken-down motorist to whom he offered a ride. Welles plays himself in the film, acting not only as the narrator, but more involvedly as the resident storyteller. One can imagine that it was this role, in addition to his obvious talents on the radio, that inspired The Fountain of Youth (1958) – a wonderful half-hour television pilot for "The Orson Welles Show," which boasted a concept not dissimilar to "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," but with Welles taking a more active presence in each episode's production (inconceivably, the show was immediately rejected). One also suspects the film's influence on the BBC's brilliant "Ghost Story for Christmas" series, the most impressive of examples of which are A Warning to the Curious (1972) and The Signalman (1976) {adapted from stories by M.R. James and Charles Dickens, respectively}.
I've really grown to like the films of John and Faith Hubley, and something about their style always struck me as familiar, but I could never quite put my finger on it. Then I saw the introductory title "an observation by John and Faith Hubley," and it came to me – this film is a precursor to "Seinfeld!" Don't lambast me just yet, I'll explain. Anybody who has seen the series' DVD releases would undoubtedly be familiar with the bonus Seinimations, directed by Eric Yahnker, which presented crude animations that synchronised with the many bizarre conversations of Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer. These snippets are worthwhile, not for their visuals, but for the vocal interplay between the contributing characters, and the essence of this idea was already entrenched in the films of the Hubleys, who typically constructed visuals around a spontaneous, free-flowing conversation between two people. The Hole (1962), John Hubley's second Oscar-winning short, tackles, among other things, the nature of accidents, and whether the notion applies to nuclear war.
Mickey Mouse's first official outing in Technicolor {after Parade of the Award Nominees (1932), which wasn't intended for public release} was The Band Concert (1935), directed by the ever-reliable Wilfred Jackson. Like many of Mickey's cartoons, this one is basically a Silly Symphony featuring Disney's most popular character, with relative newcomer Donald Duck (voiced by Clarence Nash) having a few lines of dialogue. Being a cartoon built around an already-existing piece of classical music – Gioachino Rossini's "William Tell" overture, in this case – The Band Concert might be viewed as another important step towards the achievements of Fantasia (1940). Mickey plays the irritable conductor of a country band, who is determined to finish his song against all odds. His dedicated band of performers (including Goofy, Clarabelle Cow, Horace Horsecollar and Peter Pig) continue playing despite the disruptions of Donald – who briefly confuses them into performing "Turkey in the Straw" – a mischievous bee, and a particularly violent tornado.
The entrance of Buster Keaton's unnamed character in The High Sign (1921) is, in some ways, reminiscent of Chaplin's Little Tramp persona. The wandering vagrant, named only Our Hero, is booted off a moving train, and lands in an unknown town, the audience denied any back-story or unnecessary exposition. Wandering into a nearby theme park, Buster deftly snatches a newspaper from a moving carousel (done so casually that he doesn't look like he's even trying), and attempts to read the mammoth broadsheet. In search of a job, he happens upon an opening for a talented sharp-shooter, and, despite inadvertently gunning down a duck with his practice shots, Buster feels that he's qualified enough for the position. Chaplin's Tramp was never averse to breaking the rules if he wasn't hurting anybody who didn't deserve it, and Keaton's Hero is no different. By rigging an ingenious dog-powered bell-ringer to falsify the carnival stall, Buster fools his massive employer into believing that he is an ace with the rifle. 
I'd previously only been familiar with animator Ivan Ivanov-Vano through this collaborations with Yuriy Norshteyn, but he was quite a prominent figure in the field of Soviet animation, active for nearly sixty years from the 1920s. In fact, he is often affectionately termed the "Patriarch of Soviet animation." A Strange Voice (1949) is a breathtakingly beautiful example of the master's craft, despite serving propagandistic purposes. By the 1940s, Soviet artists at Soyuzmultfilm studio had been influenced considerably by the American work of Walt Disney, and thus their animation has a quiet, realistic style that is far removed from the more unique (and, by then, obsolete) cartoon designs that had originated in the Soviet Union {see Bazaar (1934), and you'll know what I mean}. Given the degree to which Soyuzmultfilm owed its new style to American animators, it's rather ironic that this particular cartoon condemns the work of foreign artists, albeit in the guise of a pleasant and amusing cartoon made to appeal to Russian youngsters.
One Week (1920) was the first of Buster Keaton's independent two-reelers, though The High Sign (1921) was filmed first and shelved until the following year. The story starts out where most romantic comedies end: with a picturesque wedding ceremony, during which adoring relatives toss confetti and, oddly, second-hand footwear. The lucky groom (Keaton) and his bride (Sybil Seely) strike out for their new home, purchased by a well-meaning uncle. Of course, only in a Keaton short must the husband and wife construct their own house, utilising a do-it-yourself kit that goes awry when the bride's former lover switches the numbers around. The resultant dwelling would not have looked out of place in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), though Keaton is evidently proud of his handiwork, and is thus prepared to overlook the most minor of blunders (such as having the front door on the second-floor). This short served as a trial-run of sorts for the feature Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), for here we see an early version of Keaton's famous "saved-by-the-window" falling wall stunt.
All good ghost stories should be in black-and-white. There's something inherently creepy in the crisp, greyish tones of B&W photography, effectively evoking a time and place where scientific logic didn't hold such sway, and the existence of lingering human spirits seemed more plausible. Jonathan Miller's Whistle and I'll Come to You (1968) was released as an episode of the BBC television series Omnibus (1967-2002), and was adapted from a short story by M.R. James. Though hampered in some ways by a brief running time, preventing any in-depth exploration of the main character, the film is a classic supernatural chiller, a creepy ghost story in the same stylistic vein as Jack Clayton's The Innocents (1961) and Robert Wise's The Haunting (1963). Michael Hordern is perfect as the doddering old academic professor who mumbles his way across the exquisite Norfolk coastal countryside, detached from almost all social interaction. With the rustle of bedsheets and the soft whisper of a man's voice, Professor Parkins will discover that his life isn't quite as "lonely" as he thought it was.
From one Hitchcock fan to another: Bravo, Marty Scorsese! Given the task of producing a commercial for Freixenet Wines, the prominent director enthusiastically crafted an endearing homage to the Master of Suspense, in the guise of a "rediscovered" Hitchcock script. The Key to Reserva (2007) is that very rare thing – an advertisement that is absolutely a joy to watch, so much so that you can easily ignore the advertising itself and consider the prized Freixenet wine-bottle just another of Hitchcock's unlikely MacGuffins. The film even tries to obscure the fact that it is merely a commercial, with Scorsese starring as himself in a documentary framing device that sees him excitedly boasting about his plans to film three fragmented pages from an unproduced Hitchcock script. One is hardly likely to fall for the ruse nowadays, but, when the short first emerged on the internet, I have no doubt that many people were swindled, even if the promise of Marty-doing-Hitch would have seemed simply too amazing to be true.
Andrey Khrzhanovskiy's The Glass Harmonica (1968) is a very political piece of animation, and I know too little about the history of the Soviet Union to make any accurate interpretations of the film's meaning. However, I'm going to have a go at it, anyway. The craftsman of the glass harmonica arrives in a town whose citizens have become corrupted by and obsessed with the lure of money (symbolised by a single gold coin held in the hand of a shifty-looking bureaucrat). The love of wealth has transformed these people into grotesque and disgusting beasts, who roam throughout the streets thinking only of money. This, I'd imagine, would be a critique of capitalism, certainly something that one would expect from the Soviet Union in the late 1960s. When the craftsman returns to the town with his harmonica, the melodious tune of his instrument brings back the humanity of its inhabitants. They break out of their beastly cocoons, becoming beautiful human beings once again; one person offers his coat and hat to a homeless man.
Quite a few years ago, I attended a secondary school excursion to the Melbourne Museum, where we focused primarily upon the science of the human body. As part of the tour, we also attended a screening for the IMAX film The Human Body (2001), which used some nifty film-making techniques to demonstrate the workings of our organs, bones and muscles. The documentary even delved into the subject of reproduction, though I couldn't help noticing that the newly-born infant emerged in an peculiar state of utter cleanliness. Avant-garde Stan Brakhage apparently had no such inclinations towards prudishness. Perhaps his most notorious film, Window Water Baby Moving (1959) {filmed in November 1958} documents in unflinching detail the birth of his first-born daughter, Myrrena Brakhage. Unlike the bewildering Mothlight (1963), this is a Brakhage film that one doesn't need to decipher; the editing and images tell the entire story, not just of a human birth, but of the tender emotional bond between husband and wife, parent and child, and the all-seeing lens of the movie camera.
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