Struggling stockbroker Jimmie Shannon learns that, if he gets married by 7 p.m. on his 27th birthday -- which is today -- he'll inherit $7 million from an eccentric relative.
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I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Beautiful, moving film.
Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.
The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
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.
I have always heard Buster Keaton was a genius. He may be but in my Silent movie revival I have not really enjoyed any of his movies before this one.So honestly I was not so exited when I saw it was a Buster Keaton movie I was going to see. But my doubt was proved very wrong.I was laughing through most of the movie and especially the last half part was amazing. It was not like they reused the comical situations. All the time new and wonderful things happened, and it was not really hard to see this movie have inspired a lot of other movies over time.If you love a great comedy you definitely need to see this movie. By far the best Buster Keaton movie I have seen. I would also place it in my top 3 with Silent movie comedies. Even fun for people not used to Silent movies.
True love takes a lot of work - but this is ridiculous!Jimmie Shannon (Buster Keaton) is a partner in a brokerage who can't quite bring himself to propose to Mary (Ruth Dwyer), the only woman he loves. Then, his business facing ruin, he discovers he stands to inherit a fortune if only he gets married that day. He proposes to Mary, but she's put off by his apparent insincerity. So Jimmie is left to find a woman, any woman, who will marry him. Will love prevail?The film is an odd one for Keaton, starting off with a brief color sequence (in 1925) and moving quite slowly for Buster through the first third. The story was one Keaton had handed to him, rather than one he worked on himself, and feels at times like a "ladies' picture," focusing as it does on Jimmie's frustrated feelings and Mary's unhappiness.For a while, Buster's not even the main laugh-getter in the film. For a while, he plays a kind of straight man to troll-visaged Snitz Edwards, playing the lawyer bringing the news of Jimmie's inheritance. Snitz chases after Jimmie and his partner, who think he's a process-server and dodge him, but Snitz prevails. Buster still pines for Mary, saying he can love no other woman (which she happens to hear over a telephone connection, changing her mind), but agrees to bring to bring a woman to church before the deadline out of loyalty to his partner."In case two show up, I'll marry the other," Snitz declares.There are other oddities about "Seven Chances," like racial humor (Jimmie almost proposes to a black woman; a blackface actor plays a thick-headed hired hand) and the "Saphead"-style character Buster plays. It would seem like a lesser Keaton for that, but instead emerges as a masterwork of pacing and narrative. Just as you begin to settle in to "Seven Chances" tea-cozy aesthetic, it ramps things up for one of the great double-rally endings in movie history.There's also a charming sequence where Jimmie tries to find a bride among a list of female members of his country club, the "seven chances" of the film's title. He burns through those chances in six minutes, and then gets rejected by a receptionist (Jean Arthur) and a hat-check girl (Rosalind Byrne) for good measure. The sequence plays with set design and framing to keep you always wondering as to what will happen next.One amazing thing about the film you might not notice is the clever use of panning. Camera pans were still fairly new in cinema; framing was often stationary. But Buster is always in motion, and the camera moves with him. One clever shot, of Buster finding a turtle attached to his tie, apparently employs a treadmill in order to achieve an overhead camera angle.The gags here keep coming, and give "Seven Chances" the feel of a classic Keaton short. Except there's a real story here to be told, and the humor always works to move the ideas forward. It's a classic demonstration of Keaton's ingenuity - even if he didn't have a hand in the film's conception or writing he directed it, and it shows - as well as his ability to find as many ways of making you laugh in as little time as possible.
Buster Keaton's films were usually a mix of misunderstandings, stunts, and convoluted plots, and 'Seven Chances' is no exception. Our hero is the partner in a failing company heading for financial ruin and disgrace, but there may be a way out if he can marry before 7pm on his 27th birthday - the trouble is, that's today ...Cue some attempts to entice a variety of ladies into matrimony (the 'seven chances' of the title), as well as a lovely sequence in a church which slowly fills with brides in various types of dresses and veils. The chase which ensues involves Buster running away from rocks rolling down a hill in a race to reach his true love's door in time - but will he make it? Played very well and extremely clever in the way the stunts are carried out and filmed (no regard for health and safety here!), 'Seven Chances' has a lot to recommend it. As usual, Buster remains impassive throughout, no matter what happens - a gimmick which works well. This is one of his best films and well worth seeing.