A film projectionist longs to be a detective, and puts his meager skills to work when he is framed by a rival for stealing his girlfriend's father's pocketwatch.
Buster Keaton
Director
Buster Keaton
Projectionist / Sherlock, Jr.
Kathryn McGuire
The Girl
Joe Keaton
The Girl's Father / Man on Film Screen
Erwin Connelly
The Hired Man / The Butler
Ward Crane
The Local Sheik / The Villain
Doris Deane
Girl Who Loses Dollar Outside Cinema (uncredited)
Christine Francis
Candy Store Girl (uncredited)
George Davis
Conspirator (uncredited)
Kewpie Morgan
Conspirator (uncredited)
Steve Murphy
Conspirator (uncredited)
John Patrick
Conspirator (uncredited)
What a superbly intricate piece of comedic cinema this is. Keaton is a down-at-heel cinema projectionist who fancies himself as a budding "Sherlock Holmes". When a love-rival manages to frame him for pinching his (rather fickle) girlfriend's father's watch his life seems to have lost all purpose... Only when he returns to his cinema and runs that evening's movie does he doze off and dream his way into the film - this time as a brilliant detective calmly dealing with poison, explosives and dastardly cunning plots as he effortlessly solves the crime - some stolen pearls - and gets the girl! The story flows perfectly; the timing precise, the illusions almost circus-like but sophisticatedly so; no slapstick swinging planks and 8-foot puddles; just some intelligent humour and the odd, clever, use of special effects that create some sympathy for the initially rather pathetic hero! As much as to the imagery, this owes much to the score which the Club Foot Orchestra deliver setting a great pace for the shenanigans on screen.
I watch films the way I can: sixteen frames pulled across the whole running time, each one actually looked at. No trailer, no skipping. Sherlock Jr. runs 45 minutes, so sixteen stills is what I get. That's the method. It means I can't tell you the jokes land. I can tell you what stays. Keaton said walking into the screen was "the reason for making the whole picture. Just that one situation." A projectionist falls asleep in the booth and steps into the film he's running, and every door he passes through rearranges the world behind him. A man in the wings wanting that cut. He did his own stunts. The water tower dumped on him and broke his neck. Nobody knew until 1935, when an X-ray found it, eleven years later. I don't know what to do with that except write it down. The film flopped. Variety called it about as funny as "a hospital operating room." Keaton called it "alright, not one of the big ones." It's the one everybody studies now. The audience got there late, is all. The ending is the whole review, if I'm honest. He wakes, she forgives him, and he doesn't know how to kiss her, so he watches the screen and copies the actor. A man learning to be with someone by copying what's playing. I know the move. The frame at eighteen minutes is the one I keep: the booth window, him and his dream self in the same shot, one running the projector and one being the picture.
