Buster could, notoriously, "run like a jack-rabbit" for all his small size, and here his speed as well as his famous frozen poise are put to memorable use. This is classic Keaton: the fascination and frustration with machinery, the ingenuity applied and misapplied, the beauty of face and body that can express an entire universe without words, the flights of fancy and the inevitable falls. Buster Keaton, meanwhile, is in top form, playing perhaps the most fully-realized of his various romantic dreamers: the little street photographer with his hard-saved nest egg, ten cents a time, who longs to become a daredevil cameraman capturing the breaking news. This film quite simply has *everything*, and that's why even among Keaton's work it stands out. There are chases - there are stunts - there are classic sight gags, long-running situational humour, bittersweet instants and sheer belly laughs - but none of them ever sideline the impetus of the character-based action. There are no great set-piece stunts and chases to take over the screen and dominate the plot, as in "Seven Chances" or "The General" but much as I love Buster's breathtaking skills and endless acrobatic agility, I think the film actually benefits by the more integrated style. There's even an unmissable 'singing in the rain' sequence that must surely - surely! - have been an influence on Gene Kelly's famous rapture of delight (and encounter with bemused policeman) the echoes are so close. The ending echoes the beginning and every scene counts along the way, as the relationships between the principals evolve. The story itself is very simple, almost episodic, compared to some of Keaton's wilder offerings: boy loves girl, boy sets out day after day to prove himself and find his dream, as events conspire to frustrate him. The unfortunate encounter with the organ-grinder's monkey - Buster's best ever animal co-star! - proves not simply a one-off gag, but key to the plot and it is this sort of coherence that gives the film as a whole its beautiful sense of shape. The leading lady is no mere cipher to which to aspire, but a warm girl who believes in the hero all along and gives him his vital 'break'. In places it is very, very funny, on a level his feature length films arrive at far more seldom than his shorts, but it also has a fully-developed and satisfying narrative curve along timeless lines, underpinned and yet not undermined by Keaton's wry trademark lack of sentiment: virtue is rewarded, villainy confounded, and the underdog is recognised and wins through. This is the 'perfect melding of story and humour' I dreamed would lie ahead, back when I reviewed "The General", and here they are ideally intertwined. But for me this is the one: his last great film, his swansong perhaps, but the one that is perfection. A tall order for a little comedy, you might think, even with the irreplaceable imagination and grace of Buster Keaton on both sides of the camera. It must be a candidate for the shelf of the classics, to stand in its own right among all others and hold its own. For a film to rate that highly, it must be compelling, enthralling, enchanting, a technical tour-de-force - it must make my heart soar and tear it with pity, and leave me shaken and laughing and crying all at once - never put a foot wrong or lose my interest for a moment. I don't give 10/10 marks lightly I rarely give them at all.
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