Day Dreams (1922) Online

Buster, to get the approval of the father of the girl he wants to marry, sets off for the big city to show he can get a good job to support her.

He first writes to his girl that he's a big shot in a hospital. She dreams he's this important surgeon. It turns out he's just the go-fer for a veterinarian, bringing cats, dogs.....and a skunk...to the doc.

Then he writes that he's on Wall Street and "cleaning up." She dreams of a big tycoon, but - you guessed it - he's the sanitation worker and a wild scene involving confetti ensues.

After he's done with that - he doesn't last long anywhere - he writes that he's in the stage. She daydreams he's the leading actor, but he's only an extra. He winds up getting chased by the cops, inadvertently taking money that didn't belong to him and....

Finally, he writes that the police "follow his every move." She daydreams he must be the Police Captain, giving the men orders, but really it's just more of that last chase scene, except there are about 100 cops chasing him now, "following his every move."

The two-minute ending is pretty strange, too, a downer for some, but a fitting one!

"Daydreams" is basically a collection of sketches, book-ended by an opening and closing pair of scenes. As such, it has something of the perfunctory feel of a 'compilation episode': the storyline, inasmuch as there is one, consists of Buster exaggerating the status of, trying and failing at a series of lowly jobs, but while the individual episodes vary in humour, they never build into anything greater than the sum of their (rather brief) parts. Films like "Hard Luck" or "The Balloonatic" have the merit of a reasonably coherent progression from one somewhat arbitrary encounter to the next; this one is constrained by the necessity of cutting back to the framing structure, which deprives it of that vital illusion of logic. Whether as a consequence of this or not, the result is not nearly so funny. (The best sequence is possibly a battered Buster's arrival back on the doorstep of his beloved... at the hands of the US Postal Service!)

For fans, this is worth watching as ever just in order to see Buster in action, and there are certainly laughs to be had; but it offers little human interest -- this is Inept Buster without the customary redeeming turning of the tables -- and suffers from a lack of his usual narrative inspiration. The humour tends in places towards simple slapstick (Buster squirts a hose, people get wet) rather than the inspired second-guessing of audience expectations at which he excels. The funniest concepts (disguising himself as an inert shopkeeper's dummy, keeping pace exactly with his pursuers) are echoed in more successful comedies, and sadly the famous paddle-wheel clip is really less impressive when actually seen in the context of the slender plot. This comedy is inoffensive, but not really a showcase for Keaton's abilities; unlikely to win over any converts, perhaps.

Sky Movies just screened this in UK ; 2001 restoration by Lobster Films, with some great tints and hues. Running time about 23 minutes makes it pretty complete, overall not too much nitrite decomposition on the print either. It did seem to drag in places, today's audiences seem a bit less able to take the pace, although there are some great sequences. The best scene is probably the elongated one on the run from the law, particularly on the riverboat where Buster is caught on the wheel as it sails and apparently walks on water. The gag ending falls kind of flat, but overall a pretty complete print to my knowledge - 6/10 for the film and 10/10 for the folks at Lobster Films !

Buster Keaton asks a father for the hand of a nice girl. Since Keaton does not know whether he is able to support the girl he goes to the city to prove that he can and promises to her father he will shoot himself when he fails. The girl gets letters from Keaton explaining what he is doing at the moment. First he works in a sanatorium, his letter says. The next shot tells us that he is nothing more than an assistant in a dog clinic. Of course things do not go well. Then he writes he was tired of the sanatorium and is now cleaning up things. What and how he is cleaning up is the best part from this short. Again he messes things up big time and his next job is in the theater, doing 'Hamlet' to be precisely. Of course things are not as they appear to be in the letter. His coming home is another highpoint in this short.

Although 'Daydreams' does not belong to the funniest Keaton shorts I have seen so far, it definitely has some Keaton magic. I like him more than Chaplin because he is able to really make me laugh instead of just smile. Here he does that a couple of times, especially in the two parts I mentioned above. Although there are less chases, parts where I think he is at best, than I am used to, Keaton gives us a nice short. I have come to understand that the surviving prints of this film are incomplete but I can assure you that the story feels complete.

A young man (Buster Keaton) proposes a young woman (Renee Adoree), but her father questions how he might support his daughter after the marriage. The youth informs that he will move to New York, find a job and marry the girl. If he fails, he would commit suicide. Once in the big city, he works in many professions and writes to his girlfriend; and his imaginative girl reads each letter and thinks in her beloved being successful on each trial.

"Daydreams" is a very creative short comedy, showing how the imagination is able to fly, in funny situations. In accordance with the information in the beginning of the DVD, this film is totally fragmented, without being possible the restoration of many parts; therefore the story was completed in the restoration process with pictures and inter-titles to keep the original sense. Buster Keaton is again very hilarious with many gags. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Sonhos e Realidade" ("Dreams and Reality")

This short comedy has some great scenes, and it's enjoyable even though it apparently survives only in a somewhat fragmented form. The setup allows for some imaginative gags, and Renée Adorée helps out, playing the girlfriend of Keaton's character.

The story has Buster trying his hand at various professions in order to prove himself to his girl's father, getting himself into a series of comic situations each time. There are several routine stretches, but there is also a great chase sequence in the last half, which has many inventive details and that must have required some very meticulous planning. It's similar to some of Keaton's other memorably exaggerated chase setups, and it's a lot of fun to watch.

Fans of Keaton should find this well worth watching, even though you must accept many imperfections in the print in order to see it.

A comic short with some wonderful scenes, `Day Dreams' unfortunately is not as consistent as it should be. Some of the comedy just doesn't have that Keaton magic. Going to the city to make something of himself so he can marry his home town sweetheart, Keaton naturally finds himself in a variety of entanglements. The scenes outside the clothing story are great. But the highlight is the hilarious chase by the cops; it ranks with the pursuit scenes of `Seven Chances' and the cattle scenes of `Go West' for sheer ingenuity and fascinating orchestration.

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS***

"Day Dreams" is the bitterest and most disenchanted Buster Keaton film... which is saying a great deal about this most embittered and darkest of all comedians. "Day Dreams" climaxes with one of the most famous gags in the Keaton canon, and fades out on a final image of stark futility worthy of Samuel Beckett. It's also hilarious.

"Day Dreams" is a nightmare in three-quarter time, with a plot line employing a three-beat structure. Small-town Buster has gone to seek his fame and fortune in New York City, from where he sends letters home to his girlfriend (Renée Adorée). Most of the film relies on this three-beat cycle: #1) We read an extract of a letter from Buster to his girlfriend. #2) We see the girlfriend's visualisation of how well Buster is doing in the city. #3) The bitter payoff shows the grim reality of Buster's ill fortunes. Then the cycle starts again with the next letter.

For instance, Buster writes to Renée that he's "cleaning up on Wall Street". We see how she visualises him as a high-powered stockbroker, wrangling yards of tickertape and making million-dollar deals. Then we see the darker reality: Buster is actually a street sweeper in the financial district ... yes, he's cleaning up on Wall Street.

Buster's next letter tells his girl that he's taken up a medical career. She imagines him in a gleaming operating theatre, performing life-and-death surgery. In fact, Buster is a vet's assistant, tending sick animals. Next, Buster writes to his girl that he's become an actor. Here we see a truly impressive sequence, as Renee visualises Buster onstage as Hamlet, clutching Yorick's skull and emoting to a packed house in a swank theatre. Now the reality shows us a much more downmarket theatre, where a Roman epic is onstage: Buster is an anonymous spear-carrier in a long row of spear-carriers. He stands out only because he's the shortest in the line, and he manages to wreck the production with his own incompetence.

SPOILERS COMING. At the climax of the film, the cops are after Buster. He flees to the waterfront ... where a ferry is under way, several feet from the wharf. With the police on his heels, Buster takes a mighty leap. He hurdles the gap, lands safely on the deck of the outgoing ferry, and turns round to thumb his nose at the cops on the dock ... only to discover that the ferry is actually heading INTO the harbour! The fade-out gag is brilliant. Fleeing from the police, Buster ends up inside the paddlewheel of a steamer. When the ship gets under way, the wheel starts to revolve ... with Buster inside it, like a hamster in an exercise wheel. Buster stoically keeps pace with the wheel, striding forward clockwise while the wheel churns anti-clockwise. But now the wheel moves faster and faster, and Buster is forced to keep running while revolving like a modern Ixion in Hades. Finally he trips and falls, sinking below the surface ... but the spinning wheel has caught him now, and Buster is lifted and dunked, lifted and dunked, into the water and out again, over and over. Big wheel keeps on turning. It's a truly Beckettian fate, leaving Buster in a water-logged limbo: constantly moving yet never getting anywhere. Frightening and yet hilarious. "Day Dreams" deserves to be in the top 10 list of Keaton's greatest films. My rating: 10 out of 10.

The most sad short film of Buster Keaton. Not only as unhappy love story but as portrait of a poor man. without any chance to have a reasonable job. Sure, letters, and dreams and gags and a bizarre end. And the scene of Hamlet. But the message of film, bitter and far to be comfortable, is so precise than it is far to be the familiar comedy A young man and his strange, absolutely unluck. Gived in most inspired way by Buster Keaton.

Buster Keaton and Renee Adoree team up in a comedy in which our hero tries to make something of himself for his girl back home. Trouble is, as he's writing her of his successes she dreams of something far different than he's actually doing! Funny in places with the usual emphasis on stuff going wrong and the odd stunt, and some good camera work. Entertaining little movie.

I think we owe a lot to Keaton. He introduced lots of reflective conventions that seem normal today. He almost singlehandedly gave us the tools for seeing a character imagine something and them enter that imagined reality using the same film conventions the character exists in.

The greatest example is "Sherlock Jr" that would come later. Two years earlier we have a similar, less severe setup. We see the imagined jobs he has, but each imagined world gets away from him just as in Sherlock. Its a terrific notion and the most sophisticated of the early folding techniques.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

A young man must go into to big city to prove himself to the father of his girlfriend. He tries different professions and sends a letter home every time, so his girlfriend can imagine her sweetheart making big career.

Although the film is survived only partially - the dream sequences of Buster working as a surgeon and a wall street wolf are some that are gone. Luckily, the missing scenes are not that important in the storytelling point, and the film's flow is quite untouched, by the missing scenes. The film is worth to watch only for the fantastic chase scene where Buster is running from the whole city police.

In love with pretty Renee Adore, sad sack Buster Keaton takes a job in the big city, well job after job after job, finding issues with skunks, big city folk (and I mean BIG) and other obstacles beyond his control. Of course, his combination of bad timing, general clumsiness and the fates that befall so-called losers like him all stand in his way. But in just 20 minutes, Keaton builds an awesome eclectic resume, getting a ton of laughs along the way. A great chase scene shows the technical advances that stalled during the early talkie days.

This rare, partially lost short, takes advantage of old L.A. L ovations and gets Keystone cops in on the action where truly amazing special effects help turn what's left into a terrific walk (or run in Keaton's case) down old cinema memory lane. A great visual at the end gives a look into his future as Buster battles with the paddle wheel of a large boat. Maybe one day we'll get a great movie bio of the great stone face, here doing what he does best, making you laugh while wondering how he got it all together.

An incomplete film that sadly leaves up wondering about what Buster cooked up for us in the missing scenes. Still photographs and additional inter-titles have been added to give a feel of continuity, and yet many of the magical moments are probably lost. It's like eating a tomato and capsicum pizza without tomatoes and capsicum; the cheese base is tasty yet you are left unsatisfied with the core ingredients missing.

Similar to his other shorts, our protagonist here assumes different identities through the course of the film; he's a vet assistant, then a failed actor, then a janitor and lastly an escaped funny. What's funny is that his love assumes him to be a doctor, a successful theater performer and a Wall Street cleaner from the letters he sends her.

The irony of this situation would've been highlighted so well had those lost sequences, mostly involving her visions of his life abroad, been preserved. But all we can do now is daydream about these lost moments.

Overall, I thought this film was good, and Keaton fans will see several things that hint of bigger things that came in his feature films! I liked the variety of each of his jobs, which included a couple of ribs on Chaplin along the way (with one reminiscent of "City Lights" nine years later). This was one of his later short films, right when he was on the cusp of screen immortality through his full-length features.

Most reviews and comments I've seen so far talk about the famous paddle wheel sequence - but I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned the scene where he runs and catches the back of the moving streetcar!! My jaw drops every time I see it! If it was as real as it looked, then Buster Keaton was one very STRONG man - this showed what we didn't see in a similar escape he makes on a moving car amidst his big chase in "Cops"!

However, as top-notch of a stuntman and athlete that Keaton was, this streetcar-catching bit (and the car-catching bit in "Cops") may have HAD to be "tricked"; that it was beyond even Keaton's great abilities. Thoughts, anyone?

Keaton strove for realism and believability in all things in his feature films, but I'm sure he didn't hold hard and fast to that rule in his short films. No fan should be surprised by absurdities in silent comedy shorts - just about anything could happen as long as it got a laugh.

Anyway - this film still showcases many of his talents and I enjoyed it very much. I think after this, though, Buster finally learned to not let himself be chased by an army of cops - it never ended well for him! ;-) lol

There are some great bits mixed in here with some tired old ones. Mostly, this short seems to lay the groundwork for some of his later work. You can see the beginnings of bits for everything from Steamboat Bill Jr. to College to the Twilight Zone.

Some of his most famous bits are in this short, including the walk on the steamboat wheel (I can't tell which is funnier...watching it forwards or backwards.)

Notably, if you are a fan of his work on the Twilight Zone, you'll notice he does the stolen pants bit in this short. Minor variations of it are seen in the Twilight Zone, but it's the same premise. I can only assume that the missing bits are some of his finest, and were cut to use elsewhere.

Okay, this is not a particularly sophisticated film by Buster Keaton. In fact, the movie is episodic instead of the usual narrative form of story telling. Buster wants to marry a girl but has no job or skills. When her father is apprehensive to give his approval, Buster says he'll go to the city and prove himself--or shoot himself if he fails. Again and again, the hardworking but stupid guy keeps losing jobs--my favorite was when he brought in the cat to be checked out by the vet at the animal shelter where he worked and accidentally brought in a skunk! Later, another hilarious scene results in Buster being hooked by a fisherman. And, the guy then stuck him on his stringer! In fact, there quite a few funny vignettes but unfortunately, the movie seemed to end on a rather flat note. Funny but not great art or among Keaton's very best, but still well worth seeing.

This is probably the most predictable of Keaton shorts, only with an unpredictable ending that's somewhat disappointing.

Keaton loves the girl, and wants to marry her, but her father won't hear of it until he "makes good" in the big city. He proceeds to run off to do so, working at various odd jobs (with obvious results) while sending home misrepresentative letters to his girlfriend, who sits and imagines him occupied at great and important jobs.

While the wordplay in the letters (the plot device that drives most of the action) is somewhat humorous in its playfulness with both words and occupations, once the viewer gets the idea (which is quickly) it all becomes rather simplistic. Actually, I notice in this short a few homages to Chaplin movies, which I think shows that Keaton was trying something a bit more like Chaplin's tramp. If such a possibility is so, it clearly shows that the two comedians really did have different enough approaches that register differently to their distinctive storytelling.

And then it just sort of ends, in a way ultimately unsatisfying.

--PolarisDiB

Good Keaton short, dynamic and inventive. The contrasts between the girlfriend's daydreaming and Keaton's hopeless achievements is an extraordinary rendering of Shopenhauer's `Will and Representation'. In addition, the chase scene (together with Harold Lloyd's climbing of a tree in The Kid Brother) is the most outstanding traveling shot of silent comedy.

A BUSTER KEATON Silent Short.

An imaginative young lady DAYDREAMS about her boyfriend Buster making it big in New York City.

This very funny little film, showing the dichotomy between Buster's menial jobs & his letters to his girl, illustrates yet again Keaton's superb physical prowess as he puts himself through seemingly impossible & palpably dangerous stunts. Highlight: Buster in another marathon run from legions of lawmen.

Born into a family of Vaudevillian acrobats, Buster Keaton (1895-1966) mastered physical comedy at a very early age. An association with Fatty Arbuckle led to a series of highly imaginative short subjects and classic, silent feature-length films - all from 1920 to 1928. Writer, director, star & stuntman - Buster could do it all and his intuitive genius gave him almost miraculous knowledge as to the intricacies of film making and of what it took to please an audience. More akin to Fairbanks than Chaplin, Buster's films were full of splendid adventure, exciting derring-do and the most dangerous physical stunts imaginable. His theme of a little man against the world, who triumphs through bravery & ingenuity, dominates his films. Through every calamity & disaster, Buster remained the Great Stone Face, a stoic survivor in a universe gone mad.

In the late 1920's Buster was betrayed by his manager/brother-in-law and his contract was sold to MGM, which proceeded to nearly destroy his career. Teamed initially with Jimmy Durante and eventually allowed small roles in mediocre comedies, Buster was for 35 years consistently given work far beneath his talent. Finally, before lung cancer took him at age 70, he had the satisfaction of knowing that his classic films were being rediscovered. Now, well past his centenary, Buster Keaton is routinely recognized & appreciated as one of cinema's true authentic geniuses. And he knew how to make people laugh...

I like ol' Stoneface. Probably more than Chaplin. There's always a more depressing note to Keaton's short films than to the Tramp's who probably would have gotten the girl here somehow or we would have seen her declare her love for him no matter how much wealth he (not) possesses. However, I felt that even under 20 minutes, this short film could have been improved by cutting out a couple shots. The letters sent by him to his girl describing the situation just the way it was (not) were easily the funniest part, especially the cleaning-up at the stock exchange, but the way these letters were depicted and elaborated in the particular scenes went almost on for too long. So did the chase scene towards the end. By the ending, when he returns back to his sweetheart, the situation should have been elaborated that you'd feel either sorry or schadenfreude for the character or that you include an ending on a positive note that the audience at least leaves the cinema with a smile on their lips. Unfortunately, I didn't fell anything really and I'd say that this is not a good choice to start getting into Keaton's work. He's done much better.

Daydreams (1922)

*** (out of 4)

Before a father will let him marry his daughter Buster Keaton must go into the city to try and find a good job. Once in the city Buster finds it impossible to keep a job and soon has the police chasing him. Here's a pretty good short that has several nice laughs including a suicide attempt plus another scene with Keaton working on the stage. The stuff dealing with a parade is another highlight.

Convict 13 (1920)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Buster Keaton gets mistaken for a convict and must find a way to break out of prison before they hang him. Here's another middle of the road short from Keaton, which features plenty of small laughs but not enough to make this one of his better films. Highlights include the scene where he tries to catch the fish who ate his golf ball as well as the scene where they go to hang him.