Cops (1922) - Movie Review

Another of Buster Keaton's hilarious shorts is Cops from 1922. The movie short begins with Bust behind bars talking to a woman he would like to marry. It is revealed that she is on one side of a wrought iron gate with her on the other. She tells him that she won't marry him until he makes something of himself.

From then on he gets into quite a bit of trouble. After his girlfriend essentially breaks up with him he helps a man who had dropped his wallet by returning it, the man takes the wallet and pushes Buster away. In the end Buster get the money from the wallet.

A con man sees Buster with his wad of cash and tricks him into buying a pile of furniture on the sidewalk. Buster loads the furniture and drives away. He sets up a turn signal with a boxing glove that punches a police officer. Then he ends up in a policemen's review parade and again Buster gets into hilarious trouble.

Buster gets chased all across the city and eludes the police at every turn. Finally he runs into a building that turns out to be the police station. All the police chase him into the building and a lowly cop shuts and locks the doors. That cop turns out to be Buster. His girlfriend walks up and he introduces himself to her in his new profession. She is not amused and walks on by. Buster unlocks the doors and allows himself to be taken into custody.

This movie short begins to show that Buster will do his own stunts. And that there is nothing that he won't do. He has a very funny exchange with a horse. Again he utilizes the stone faces expression as if to say that "he isn't surprised about what is happening, so why should you be?" I have seen this used in may different movies in the last couple of decades, including Jumanji with Robin Williams. But Buster is the master of the stone face.

IMDB scale of 1 to 10 stars, I give this a 9. It was funny, but it didn't invoke any other emotions or utilize any other genre. There was very little drama, although if it were a longer movie I am sure it would be placed it the category of a dramedy, a drama that is also a comedy.