Seven Chances

This time the natural disaster with which many of Keaton’s films culminate takes the form of approximately five hundred angry women in wedding dresses chasing the protagonist through the streets of Los Angeles. The brilliantly intensified, breakneck stunts and off-the-wall jokes (a turtle!) drive the twenty-minute chase forward, culminating in a scene that leaves the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark in the dust, preceded by a wonderful example of working with time limits. Keaton plays a bachelor who can inherit seven million dollars if he gets married no later than seven o’clock in the evening on his twenty-seventh birthday. That day has arrived and there are only a few hours left until evening. After a girl with whom he has long secretly been in love rejects him because of an inappropriate remark, he tries his luck with seven other ladies. With each rejection, the fateful seventh hour draws closer and Frigo, who keeps a straight face even as he zigzags between rolling boulders, must not stop if he doesn’t want to lose his race against time. Thanks to that, Seven Chances is an extremely dynamic film, enlivened by clever visual gags (which don’t draw too much attention to themselves and leave it up to you to find and appreciate them) in addition to the ceaseless movement of the protagonist, the unconventional design of some scenes (the “static” relocation by car) and the multiple actions running in parallel (the black servant, obviously played a white actor in blackface, is also an unpleasant reminder of the racism of the period in which the film was made). As befits a film of movement, the greatest risk is stopping – the situation becomes critical after the protagonist’s brief nap in the church. Unlike Chaplin’s more traditionalist farces, in which finding a partner also means finding harmony, in Keaton’s film, getting married is essentially a pragmatic decision (or rather a necessity) that is, furthermore, preceded by a series of stressful and life-threatening events. Therefore, the romance of the last shot must necessarily be disrupted by an annoying dog, thus giving us the feeling that no great idyll awaits the newly married couple anyway. 85% (25/09/2016)

The chase with a crowd of fanatical, ingratiating brides (crowned with a stone avalanche) is monumental and in every way equal to the one in Cops, where Buster Keaton rides with the gendarmes on his heels. It even surpasses the aforementioned scene as far as ridiculousness is concerned, for when else do you see brides being carried away by a tram or a rail crane with the poor main character hanging on its hook? (05/11/2014)

Buster Keaton amazes me incredibly. Not only with how he can go through his films with a stone face, but especially with everything he does in his films. Those stunts are truly unbelievable. The avalanche scene is just fantastic. Why isn't this kind of thing as common today? I feel like nothing looks truly dangerous and real anymore. And besides, this is actually a story about how Keaton's hero doesn't want to get married. Great action, entertaining. (03/07/2014)