I need a different scale to rate this movie. My five-goat scale doesn't seem to be adequate for how wonderful it is. I can't remember the last time I rewound a movie over and over, just to marvel at the technical brilliance of something I saw onscreen. I did that at three different points in this 44 minute long film by one of the undeniable masters of both the silent screen and of film in general. The next time I hear someone say that they don't like silent films because they are "boring," I might just smite them with this film.

In one of the first examples of the self-reflexive cinema (where the film acknowledges its unique status as both a form of entertainment and a defined set of elements that can be categorized), Buster Keaton plays a young theater projectionist who is too broke to buy his love (Catherine McGuire) a $3 box of chocolates. In one amusing sequence, he finds money in the pile of debris he is sweeping up, but each time someone comes to claim it. He settles for the $1 box, but pencils in $4 to impress the girl. He heads over to her house, presents her with a ring and the candy, and is brushed aside when another suitor comes with a bigger box. Unbeknownst to Keaton, this other man has stolen a watch belonging to the girl's father and pawned it to buy the larger box. Keaton is framed for the theft when his amateur sleuthing results in the other suitor planting the pawn receipt in Keaton's pocket. He returns dejectedly to his job, falls asleep, and has a dream that he can enter and leave the film he is projecting at will.

This is the first of the technically brilliant setpieces. In a sequence lasting some four minutes, Keaton finds himself running in and out of a series of sets; some outdoors, some indoors, in different climates, etc., all of which involve him narrowly escaping physical harm. The editing of this portion is among the best in the silent era, and I still don't quite know how he did it. He finally enters the story of the film, which concerns the efforts of a bad fellow (played by the same actor as the suitor in the "real life" segments) to lie, cheat, and steal his way into the heart and pocketbook of a young woman and her wealthy father. The storyline, with Keaton as the fearless Sherlock Jr., follows that of the framing story, but this time the bad guy and his partners are trying to kill Keaton before he solves the theft of some pearls.

There is a tour-de-force (I may have to use that term several times in this review, because it's the most apt name for what Keaton achieves) sequence involving an exploding billiards ball that Keaton manages not to hit. There is another (the first of the ones I had to watch over and over) where he dives headfirst through a window and emerges on the other side dressed as an old woman. There is a completely amazing sequence where he seems to dive straight through his partner and through a fence. And there's the final, unmatched sequence where he rides a motorcycle (sitting on the handlebars) through various hazards including a traffic jam, a large hole in a bridge, and a train.

Keaton called his elaborate stunts "trajectories," and he never once used a stuntman or a stand-in, although he apparently contracted an Olympic runner to run a marathon for him in one of his films. During the making of Sherlock Jr., he apparently broke his neck, an injury that was not discovered until several years later. He is the unsurpassed master of physical comedy. For many years he was unjustly devalued as a filmmaker while the more personable Charlie Chaplin eclipsed him. While I love Chaplin's films, there is no doubt that Keaton was a more accomplished filmmaker. Chaplin tended to use a still camera in front of which he would do his antics, while Keaton had a better grasp on the technical aspects of filmmaking. He was probably one of the greatest directors of all time, and a recent upsurge in his popularity will undoubtedly lead to his recognition as such.