If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Good start, but then it gets ruined

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

They either laugh, show him a wedding ring, a baby, and even a different skin color. One's underage, and another's not even a woman. Each of them gets a proposal from Buster Keaton, about to inherit a huge fortune, as long as he is married by seven that night. It's a simple premise with many funny moments, accelerated by Keaton's strong detail for comedy. But as word gets out, this creates a stampede of anxious money grubbing brides. What results from there is nothing short of genius in the art of film comedy, leading to a long chase sequence and a confrontation with a bunch of rolling rocks, and I don't mean beer. I've always believed that chaos results from the abundance of idiots in large groups, and while I cannot attest to the intelligence of the female crowd, I can show proof of the genius in Keaton through even such simple visuals of watches with different times. The sudden stalking of Keaton by the enraged non- brides is outrageously funny, and when I first saw this years ago in film history class, I was one of several dozen students with sore chests by the time the film was over. At just over 90, this film continues to hold up very well.

IT HAS BEEN reported that Buster Keaton was less than happy that the rights to this play had been bought and ticked for delivery as a future project for his company. The reason given that by 1925 this was old. Keaton thought it to have been a real "turkey", even when it was new.WELL IT TURNED out much, much better than anyone could have imagined while in Keaton's charge. His instincts and skills for what to do with it transformed it into a really great representative piece of work by "the Great Stone Face" and one that is often chosen as representative of his over all output; even though he never dons overalls during its running time.AND WHILE WE are on the subject of length, it fits into a category which would later be dubbed "Streamliner: by the competitor Hal Roach Studios. That is, its running time around an hour (in this case 56 minutes); which allows it to be comfortably featured as a part of a Double Feature. (the vest thing since sliced bread in its day) THE STORY HAS been told that Buster & company weren't quite sure how to wrap things up; until a preview audience gave them a clue. They seemed to expect more from the paper-mache boulders; so the scenes featuring the veritable avalanche of giant rocks was amplified.THE GAG WORKED even better that expected and probably even changed Mr. Keaton's attitude about the play which became a most successful cog in his output. (It was remade as a 3 STOOGES' short featuring Shemp Howard as the luckless would be Groom)

The genius on show in this film is like watching farce and slapstick executed by a Mozart of comedy. It is so comically hyperventilating that you go beyond mere laughs into a realm of blissful delirium as absurdity is piled upon sublime absurdity, until solid reality simply gives up and collapses into a dancing avalanche of drollery. Buster Keaton shakes us on a Richter scale of laughter, leaving our world delightfully re-arranged into the dizzying dream of somewhere better - a place we can be completely carried away, like the sort of wild party where true love is always waiting, so long as you are ready to abandon all reason and make a complete fool of yourself. Such is the magical and hilarious trajectory of our bouncing hero through a world of epic obstacles, each of which he circumvents by executing miracles with the grace of a sad-faced clown. Here is a circus of the human soul, where grace transforms our doltish misadventures into soaring flights of fancy that must surely make even the angels smile at such happy accidents! They welcome the jeu d'esprit that can rise above disaster, vaulting over it with the soaring energy of LIFE, the pure and utterly undismayed force that encourages us to pick ourselves up and carry on. In many ways the spectacle of Keaton prevailing against absurdly proliferating setbacks represents the only authentic survival of the increasingly battered American Dream. Buster just never gives up - bad luck will give in before he stops trying! He's the little man apotheosized by a ridiculous and powerful idealism. He's the enemy of bitterness and cynicism. With his manifold rolling rocks he escapes like some kind of crazy incarnation of Hope. He bowls us over like the boundless love of a soppy dog. He shakes us out of our stuffy places for long, erratic runs through the heart-warming sunshine that stretches unbroken from that day to this, and for as long as such brilliance can lighten our lives.

SEVEN CHANCES (1925) is a Buster Keaton vehicle, wherein a young man receives an inheritance from his grandfather – with the condition that he marry on his 27th birthday. His quest to find a wife in time to make the deadline is the driving force behind this comedy. Directed by Buster Keaton.This film takes some time to really develop its comic potential to the full. At first it proceeds rather slowly, but then the laughs slowly start to build up…and the payoff in the final act is spectacular. The various rejections he encounters in his quest for a wife are quite amusing. Unfortunately, some of the comedy relies on stereotype-driven blackface humor, which was considered funny at the time but is cringe- inducing now. In the last act, Keaton again shows his mastery of outrageous sight gags and athleticism, all done in his trademark deadpan persona. An ad in the paper brings many prospective brides to a church, and then the pastor convinces them that it was a prank, resulting in one of the most hilariously inventive chase sequences ever, treating us viewers to a raging torrent of hysterical sight gags and daring athleticism by Keaton. You'll have to see it to believe it. And the ending is just what you wished for, all done in a nice compact 56 minute runtime. SCORE: 8/10