★ 6 / 10
Buster Keaton's style of humor is fairly well-known
sean l
Buster Keaton's style of humor is fairly well-known for its dark edge, but the starting premise of Hard Luck is a bit extreme even by his standards. Penniless…
Buster Keaton's style of humor is fairly well-known for its dark edge, but the starting premise of Hard Luck is a bit extreme even by his standards. Penniless and down on his luck, evicted from the simple shelter of a drug store window, he sets out to end his own life via whatever means he can scrape together.
Alas, even this macabre escape eludes him, though not for lack of trying. Like the bleak suicide montage that would run through the second act of Bill Murray's Groundhog Day, seventy years later, there's a wild sense of taboo delight linking these lightning-quick flashes of easy death; unity through the sheer, helpless futility of it all. In failing to do himself in, Buster hits his rock bottom, finds his feet, and (inspired by the fuzzy embrace of a stiff drink, fortuitously mislabeled as a poison) musters the courage to immediately tackle brighter pursuits. In these, he finds no better luck - fishing, hunting and high-diving being no easier than suicide - but, again, we're delighted to see him fail upward. Whether trying to improve himself or end himself, Keaton can't break his date with destiny.
The pacing can be a bit jagged (owing to the film's long-term status as a lost gem, only partially reconstructed in 1987) and the ending is an absurd non-sequitur, but the daring, off-color subject matter is striking and (as always) there's no shortage of good, silly, physical comedy to be had. I'd love to see the complete, Keaton-approved first cut.
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★ 9 / 10
Hard Luck" is 21 minutes in length and
Christopher B
"Hard Luck" is 21 minutes in length and is another of his shorts that has truly black humor as the subject of the film revolves around Buster playing a down…
"Hard Luck" is 21 minutes in length and is another of his shorts that has truly black humor as the subject of the film revolves around Buster playing a down and out guy who tries and fails to commit suicide (in various hilarious moments). Buster Keaton himself said that the end gag, which unfortunately is lost to time (3 minutes total), was his favorite and most laughable gag in his career. "Hard Luck" was lost for over 60 years, even through Buster's death, and it's a wonder we have it today in such a close to complete version. The film does a good job of detailing what happens as Buster jumps from the high dive and then transitions to the hole in the ground and tells more details via inter-title about what happens next and ends with a single still image that sums it up! I won't spoil it because it was Buster's personal favorite gag and is truly laugh out loud hilarious! This short is a must see!
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★ 8 / 10
I found this to be a scream. Keaton
Nick M
I found this to be a scream. Keaton is still in this place professionally where he has to pump out films at a rate far quicker than the biggest names of the…
I found this to be a scream. Keaton is still in this place professionally where he has to pump out films at a rate far quicker than the biggest names of the day (making around six pictures a year while Chaplin is making around one film every other year), so he doesn't yet have time to polish his pictures to the same degree as some of his contemporaries, so it's wonderful to see him holding his own against his stricter deadlines. Hard Luck's narrative was completely abandoned about half way through, but it's hard to hold that against it too much when laughing continuously at its original high jinks. It's common for comedians in a hurry to decide on gags first and then shoe horn them into the scenario, but Keaton clearly allowed the circumstances to dictate the comedy, and the film shines for it. I particularly loved watching him paddle his horse across the river, his fishing escapades, and the surprising bit with the headlights. The suicidal ideation at the beginning got to be a bit much (Harold Lloyd has done this premise to death by 1921), but overall this is a winner for me.
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· 250 ratings
6.9/10
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