Remarkable feature displaying all that makes Keaton great: ingenious
and hilarious gags, astounding athleticism (Buster unknowingly
broke his neck in one stunt) and a tight story which never lapses into
sentimentalism. It's also his most avant-garde feature, an
exploration of the illusion of cinematic 'reality'. He plays a cinema
projectionist who is falsely accused of stealing from his girl's
father. He falls asleep at work and dreams that he is Sherlock, entering
the film he's projecting. This proves difficult at first - abrupt cuts
land a bewildered Buster in a lion's den and a snowdrift - but eventually
he assimilates himself fully into the film and solves the crime.
Marvellous and still modern.
