Before watching the movie:

It’s hard to tell if I’ve heard of all of Buster Keaton’s greatest films and this isn’t one of them but silent film fans know it, or if I’ve barely scratched the surface of silent film. Either way, I only found out about this in doing costume research for a play about a silent film set.

It’s hard to know what to expect. The General was a very straightforward narrative with emphasized physical humor. On the other hand, Sherlock, Jr (and indeed most silent film comedies I’ve seen) meandered to wherever the jokes might be. In addition, Sherlock, Jr is very much a movie about movies (Keaton’s character has a literal dream of jumping into a Sherlock Holmes movie), so I’m not sure where this can go that parts of Sherlock, Jr didn’t.

Apparently, Keaton’s character gets a job as a cameraman to be close to his love interest. That still doesn’t tell me much about what to expect, since that’s probably just an excuse to get the story to the gag theme.

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