CINEMATIC Review

SEVEN CHANCES   ****

Buster Keaton

1925

IDEA:  A man will inherit his grandfather's $7 million fortune if he marries by 7 p.m. tonight.

BLURB:  Nobody in history has been able to milk more honest-to-goodness hilarity out of the act of being chased. In Seven Chances, the pursuit of Keaton’s limber, quick-legged bachelor rests at the top of his distinguished list: tailed by literally thousands of women in prospective wedding garb who flood the streets like some kind of massive Exodus, the scale of this rowdy piece couldn’t be greater or more hysterically conceived. And then just when you think it’s reached its zenith, along comes a rockslide, and then more obstacles, popping up in the most inopportune places but surmounted by Keaton in the most ingenious and opportune ways. All 56-odd minutes of this film manage to sustain that extraordinary, zany brilliance. The smile will never leave your face.