Sherlock Jr.

Keaton’s learning curve was immensely quick. Only a year after Our Hospitality showed his artistic triumphs in the infant stages, Sherlock Jr. comes out and demonstrates that he is now at the top of his craft. At roughly forty-five minutes in length, which is both too brief and just right, Sherlock Jr. may just, objectively speaking, be the greatest film in all of his filmography.

It’s certainly the most avant-garde. While many of his films may dip their toes into surrealistic images or make you think you’re hallucinating what you’re seeing, this one actually is a surrealistic, hallucinatory journey through the imagination. It’s also a love letter to cinema in many ways.

Keaton is a love-sick film projectionist who daydreams of becoming a world class detective. After being incorrectly framed as a thief by his romantic rival, Keaton falls asleep in the booth and begins his whimsical (dream) journey. A still outstanding bit of camera trickery sees Keaton’s ghostly dream-version rise out of his still sleeping body and walk into the theater. He continues walking until he has actually become one with the running bits of stock film footage on the big screen.

In this film/dream world, he is a well-respected detective and goes on to solve an elaborate mystery. This film/dream world is a testament to the power of the imagination and to the cinema. Not only is he able to right the wrongs of his real life, but he can escape from reality and become whoever he wishes to be. Has that not been the power and magic of reading, theater and film since the beginning?

Keaton has created a wonderful visual poetry with his too numerous to mention memorable gags in this film. The lockstep behind his rival, the moment he enters the screen, a pool game that doesn’t go as planned, a window escape that involves a costume change, or a moment in which he appears to jump into the body of his friend. They’re each astounding and I could write paragraphs upon paragraphs about how brilliant they are.

Sherlock Jr. is the kind of movie that ignites the Keaton vs. Chaplin debate. They’re both brilliant (for the record, I fall into the Chaplin camp), and if any movie could convert me to the other’s camp, it is this one. The tremendous economy of the storytelling leaves no room for lags or quiet moments. The gags are brilliant, the stunts are memorable, and Keaton’s three-in-one character/performance is a masterclass in underplaying for effect. It’s also fairly disarming to realize that even this early into cinema’s life artists were creating films which reflected on the relationship between medium and viewer. And to think a movie like The General was still just around the corner. Amazing.