Capsule Review: Sherlock Jr. (1924)

Running only 45 minutes, Sherlock Jr. hardly qualifies as a feature, but Buster Keaton packs his tale of a lonely, daydreaming projectionist who yearns to be a detective with a constant stream of inventive gags. Featuring a long fantasy sequence with Buster as the titular hero – interesting to see him as a more competent and confident character – the film has many wonderful moments, particularly the scene where a sleeping Buster leaves his projection booth and enters the film, but gets tripped up by a constantly changing background. Buster actually broke his neck making this film, the dangers of performing such a physical style of slapstick, but he was rarely in better form than here.