SHERLOCK JR

DIRECTOR: Buster Keaton
WRITERS: Clyde Bruckman, Jean Havez, Joseph Mitchell
STAR: Buster Keaton
1923, 45m

"Fast moving, gag-filled comedy which ranks among its star’s best." -- Leslie Halliwell

"Keaton reached his pinnacle with this brilliant and hilarious story...Sublime study of film and fantasy, which has undoubtedly influenced countless filmmakers such as Woody Allen, Jacques Rivette, even Buñuel." -- Leonard Maltin

"Wonderfully imaginative, full of extraordinary tricks so immaculately executed that they look simple." --
Pauline Kael

"In Sherlock Jr., boiling along on the handlebars of a motorcycle quite unaware that he has lost his driver, Keaton whips through city traffic, breaks up a tug-of-war, gets a shovelful of dirt in the face from each of a long of Rockette-timed ditch-diggers, approaches a log at high speed which is hinged open by dynamite precisely soon enough to let him through and, hitting an obstruction, leaves the handlebars like an arrow leaving a bow, whams through the window of a shack in which the heroine is about to be violated, and hits the heavy feet-first, knocking him through the opposite wall. The whole sequence is as clean in motion as the trajectory of a bullet."
-- James Agee, Comedy's Greatest Era (collected in Agee on Film)

"If any one Buster Keaton feature comedy can really be said to be his best, then Sherlock Jr. is that one."
-- William K. Everson.

SHOWTIMES: 1:10, 4:05, 7:00*, 9:55 (*live piano accompaniment at 7:00 show -- synchronized soundtrack at other shows)
CO-FEATURE: THE STRONG MAN and short BACKSTAGE