The Mini-masterpieces: Keaton Shorts

You cannot talk about Buster Keaton's body of work without mentioning his shorts. Keaton was still making short films long after his contemporaries Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd moved on to feature films. According to Keaton's Autobiography, he wasn't considered a bankable enough star to carry an entire feature.

After studying a number of Keaton's shorts along with some of Chaplin's I would say, Keaton's come off the best. Chaplin seemed to be using his shorts to better refine his tramp character, while Buster used his to further experiment with camera techniques and show off his keen grasp of the sight gag. One of my favorites is the opening sequence of "The Goat". In it Keaton is waiting in the bread lines not realizing the men in front of him are mannequins. Then there is his early use of special effects in "The Playhouse". In it Buster is performing his own show at the local theatre where he is playing everyone involved. This includes an entire orchestra, to the conductor, to a stage hand, to the people in the audience. And this was years before people like Peter Sellers made doing multiple characters a common practice.

We can also see a number of gags that Keaton would use later to greater effect in his features. There is the famous sequence in "The Goat" where Keaton arrives in the front of a train engine in a very innovative close-up. You can't help but think of Keaton hanging on for dear life in front of a train engine later in "The General".

However, Keaton's shorts were not as well preserved as his features, which has caused some now infamous missing scenes. The most famous is probably the climactic sight gag in "Hard Luck". In it, Keaton's character, determined to end it all jumps off a diving board into an empty swimming pool. But instead of killing himself he breaks through the ground. Years later he comes back to the exact same spot this time with his newly aquired Chinese family. Keaton has called this scene the funniest he has ever done. The closest we have gotten to see the real thing comes curtesy of stilled images of Keaton with said Chinese family.

Most of Keaton's shorts have a running time of about 20 minutes and none of them seem too short or too long. They do what short films are suppose to do and that's leave you wanting more. Keaton knew exactly how to end on a high note.