sean l
Set in a raucous live theater on a crowded night, The Play House is most impressive as a cinematic playground, one where a shrewd Buster Keaton experiments and toys with the format in his own distinctive fashion. The opening dream sequence is the flashiest bit, and the most ambitious, where Keaton manages to play every role (as many as eight duplicates on-screen at a time) in a wild string of silly comic interactions, costumed audience reactions and precisely choreographed dance numbers. It all looks seamless in practice, better than countless imitators over the ensuing years, and Buster exploits the long scene for all it's worth.
The novelty hasn't quite worn off when he abruptly changes gears, awakens the dreaming protagonist and sails headlong into his usual forte: silly physical antics and wacky cases of mistaken identity, with a full supporting cast behind him. It's not unfamiliar thematic territory for Keaton - his 1919 short, Back Stage, also took place behind the scenes of a troubled production - but this time the pace is quicker and the laughs are mightier. He shows wide range under the spotlight, leaping from subdued bafflement (upon discovering his love interest has a twin sister who doesn't care for him) to pure superficial pantomime (impersonating a primate, after the animal talent escapes through a back door) and several stops in-between, rewarding each with delightful resourcefulness and unexpected punchlines. Free-spirited and unrelentingly funny on a surface level, but also admirable from a technical and historical perspective.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
03/30/23
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Audience Member
Buster Keaton brings us a catalogue of camera tricks and visual quips in this classic 1921 short.
Keaton's innovative camera shutters pioneered popular shot techniques and many of his great sight gags are still regularly replicated on the silver screen today.
A majestic reminder of the magic-show quality of early moving pictures.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/14/23
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Audience Member
The opening dream sequence in which Keaton plays every role - famously including some multiple exposure shots where he played up to nine parts - is a stupendous technical achievement which happens to be very entertaining as well. After the six minute dream sequence, the entertainment is less consistently premium Keaton but there are still plenty of good stunts and great bits in the rest of the movie. A theme of doubles, mirrors, and reflections continues through the movie along with as lots of vaudeville comedy.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/12/23
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Audience Member
The Buster Keaton show... literally. So this is about a stagehand (Keaton) who works at a theatre where things have the tendency to go wrong. After a nap filled with surreal dreaming, he's got a show to run. I wouldn't go so far to call this my favorite Keaton short, because that honor goes to the One Week, but this might just be my runner-up; I really do like it that much. As you may have already picked up in these reviews, I am very admittedly a massive Buster Keaton fan. For being made in 1921, this has some pretty spectacular special effects. For the opening six minutes, it's nothing but Keaton on the screen, playing every single part. There are as many as nine Buster Keatons showcased at the same time. One small point against this is that there is a brief instance of blackface in this, and while it makes you cringe, he doesn't do anything overly offensive, except for the make-up itself. His physicality is, like always, really is the sell point; there is a scene where he is playing a monkey, and he really gets into it. Seriously, it is something that probably inspired Andy Serkis for the Planet of the Apes series and King Kong, and I absolutely mean that. I am so thankful that shorts were a much more popular of a medium back in the day, just because there are so many opportunities for me to see Keaton in something that I have never seen him in before.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
02/26/23
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Audience Member
This is quite disjointed towards the end but features a brilliant opening sequence, where Buster Keaton plays every role at a time when such technical wizardry would have been remarkable.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/04/23
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Audience Member
This may only be a 22 minute short film, but there's certainly a lot going on. What we get are the goings on at a playhouse, seeing various skits and stage performances, but this film isn't so simple, as it jumps all over the place from dream sequences to reality and back, and is all kinds of disjointed, but the real highlight is the fact that the cast is made up of dozens, with 75% (at least) of them being Keaton in multiple roles.
That's pretty cool and impressive, but even more so given the technical limitations of the day, and the fact that Keaton was able to pull this off, especially a sequence where he appears in frame as 9 different characters simultaneously. And people think Eddie Murphy is great at this sort of thing.
This seemed mroe overtly funny than The General, but maybe because it's shorter and there's more laughs crammed in per minute. I'm still not a big fan of slapstick, but this makes me appreciate it a bit more. That, and, like I said, this has some crazy innovations going on. Even then, it's not the most memorable thing ever, but still cool.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/09/23
Full Review
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