Writers At The Movies: Part Three

I found myself watching another Buster Keaton silent short film, Cops (1922), since port Charles Simic choose to write about it for Writers At The Movies. In a mere 18 minutes Keaton executes gag after gag-first a mistaken purchase of a family's belongings as they movie causes all kinds of sight gags until he accidentally throws an anarchists bomb at the police during a parade after lighting a cigarette put shim on the run form the cops. Much of the comedy comes from his evasion of the masses of cops trying to run him down-until he finally turns himself in. Simic points out that Keaton is the last cloying of the silent stars since he never smiles, he stoically marches on no matter what is happening.