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Reviews
The Frozen North (1922)
A short but brilliant comedy
Well, this film actually is funnier than most remember. In fact, most don't remember it. It's only about twenty minutes long, and never made it all that big. Yes, it's the one film where Keaton doesn't play someone you can instantly sympathise with. He's mean in parts, but with good reason (you find out at the end). It hops randomly from image to image, with absolutely nothing tying them together. The next paragraph just has some descriptions of scenes from the film - I've marked them as spoilers anyway, since the comedy is best seen fresh.
*** SPOILERS ***
Every scene has comic genius plastered all over it. Takeoffs of westerns, of ads, of film conventions, all done with an utterly surreal edge. There's a dogsled shaped like a 20s motor car, pulled by a team of dachshunds, greyhounds and bassets. The opening shot is him walking out of a subway entrance onto a desolate snow plain. He holds up a pub using a cardboard cutout of a gunman gained from a billboard poster. Sure, he's not our lovable Buster Keaton, but Keaton always had a mean streak in him (remember him tossing his leading lady into the train in The General, or trying to throttle her before hugging her?). In short, it's an anarchic romp that's well worth watching. It's all tied together in the end, and in the meantime you can just entertain yourself by watching the antics. Don't try to figure out what's going on. Just watch and accept. Not typical Keaton, but terribly enjoyable anyway.