Cops

Buster Keaton's "Cops" is a very funny and very well-crafted short comedy with a wide range of comic material, ranging from subtle timing gags to hilarious slapstick, and featuring some impressive choreography as well. It takes a short while to set everything up, and then it is very humorous the rest of the way. Keaton's character is involved in a series of misunderstandings at the beginning of the film that eventually lead to him driving across town in a rickety carriage filled with things that don't belong to him. Soon he is being pursued by (literally) every policeman in the city. There are plenty of laughs from Keaton's own comic skills, and a lot of large-scale chase scenes that are carefully filmed and very entertaining.

This is a movie not to be missed for anyone who enjoys silent comedies.

This is a relatively early Keaton short, one of the first where he clearly designed the sight gags.

Its a conventional chase setup, with him being chased by hundreds of cops. It starts slowly, and the first half is way below par.

But then we move into Keaton territory with some stunts so physically extreme and dangerous its amazing that he survived. We don't yet have any that involve huge machines or buildings, but this is snappy and the pace is perfect once it gets going.

I'm not sure whether its perfect because he found the right pace, or because he established it and it seems right.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Each film of Buster Keaton, for me, is support of reflection. "Cops" is not a reflection. But a sketch about motifs, choices, situations and fine art of birth of comedy. A film about manner to survive to adversary situations. And to build a form of happiness in the most inspired manner. The furniture, the horse, the cops and the innocent victim of unhappy situations are good pieces of a realistic and profound useful portrait of near reality. The same after almost a century.

This seems to be Buster Keaton's most popular short film. I prefer his films with more cinematically based comedy, such as in "The Playhouse", "The Frozen North" and "Sherlock, Jr.", but "Cops" is a very entertaining little film. It features a large comedic chase--chases, especially involving policemen, being one of the most regularly reoccurring devices in Keaton's oeuvre, especially in his two-reelers. Cops chased Keaton in "Convict 13", "Neighbors", "Hard Luck", "The Goat" and--in an escalated chase very similar to that in "Cops"--"Daydreams". My favorite Keaton chase, by the way, is the chase of the brides in "Seven Chances".

The comedic chase has a long cinema tradition, perhaps dating back to James Williamson's "Stop Thief!" (1901) or "Chinese Laundry Scene" (1895), the latter of which was based on a vaudeville act. Then, there were the Pathé comedies and those of Mack Sennett's Keystone, which were greatly derived from them. Keaton came from vaudeville and worked under one of the premiere early comedians, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, to begin his on screen career, so he was fully immersed in this tradition.

In "Cops", there are some good visual jokes that rely on film technique, such as following a close shot of Keaton behind bars with a reverse long shot that clarifies the opening scene. Keaton's mechanical inventiveness is demonstrated during the horse carriage sequence. And, there's plenty of physical comedy during the great chase finale. Keaton's sense of matured, restrained comedy is also important here, which is perhaps best characterized by his retained stoic expression throughout any chaotic misadventure. "Cops" is rather representative of Keaton's refined sense of what's funny and of his advanced understanding of film-making.

A series of mishaps manages to make a young man get chased by a big city's entire police force.

This is not my favorite Keaton film, or even my favorite Keaton short. It is not quite on the level of "One Week", for example. But it still has some of those great physical gags that Keaton was known for (the see-saw on the fence is vintage Keaton).

There is some question over whether or not the dynamite is a reference to Harold Lloyd. I have my doubts on that, but who knows? Either way it is interesting to have an anarchist in the plot. Audiences today (2015) may not fully appreciate how ubiquitous stories of anarchists were when this film came out, and it was actually a timely joke.