Seven Chances

Starring:Lori Bara, T. Roy Barnes, Bartine Burkett, Rosalind Byrne, Erwin Connelly, Jules Cowles, Doris Deane, Hazel Deane, Ruth Dwyer, Snitz Edwards, Connie Evans, Eugenia Gilbert, Edna Hammon, Marion Harlan, Judy King, Rosalind Mooney, Frances Raymond, Constance Talmadge, Pauline Toller
Studio: Kino Video
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
The reputation of Buster Keaton's Seven Chances rests almost solely on its outrageous finale, a brilliant cascade of comic invention that begins with a church full of blushing brides and builds to a surreal chase of epic proportions. The hapless groom is pursued by a angry mob of women clad in white lace and veils and ends up dodging rolling stones and massive boulders while fleeing an avalanche, never once losing his trademark deadpan. Buster plays a struggling lawyer who will inherit a fortune if he marries by 7 p.m. of his 27th birthday--the very day he receives notice of the potential windfall. When his longtime sweetheart turns him down, he frantically searches for someone--anyone--to wed. While Seven Chances doesn't have the sustained inspiration of his best films, Keaton fills the picture with inventive moments and clever ideas, notably a sustained series of desperate proposals (the "seven chances" of the title) that lead to the climactic swarm of aggressive brides. The biggest weakness is an embarrassing blackface performance that has only become more offensive with the years. Jean Arthur briefly appears as a switchboard operator. The film was remade in 1999 as The Bachelor with Chris O'Donnell. The DVD also features two short films: "Neighbors," the story of young lovers who flirt across the fence that separates their houses and their bickering families, and "The Balloonatic," which despite the presence of a hot air balloon is actually a gag-filled camping comedy. --Sean Axmaker
Description
Love has never been funnier or more difficult to manage than in the immortal Buster Keaton comedies brought together on this DVD. Opening with a newly restored Technicolor sequence, "Seven Chances" (1925, 56 min.) is a film often imitated but never rivaled for hilarity and visual virtuosity. Keaton stars as Jimmie Shannon, a romantically jinxed young man who must marry by 7:00 pm to inherit seven million dollars. Comedic courtship is further pursued in "Neighbors" (1920, 18 min.), a 1920 short in which Buster tries to woo his tenement sweetheart in spite of the barriers that stand between them. Then, in "The Balloonatic" (1923, 22 min.), Buster is carried by hot air from a cityside amusement park to the rustic country where--in a series of delightfully inventive vignettes--he ineptly struggles for survival and again somehow manages to stumble into romance.

The Art of Buster Keaton (The General / Sherlock, Jr. / Our Hospitality / The Navigator / Steamboat Bill Jr. / College / Three Ages / Battling Butler / Go West / The Saphead / Seven Chances / 21 Short Films)
Average customer rating:

Genius

Buying Asian versions

In Buster Keaton's memory!

Reeeealy close, but not quite a cigar

Contents of the set

The Art of Buster Keaton (The General / Sherlock, Jr. / Our Hospitality / The Navigator / Steamboat Bill Jr. / College / Three Ages / Battling Butler / Go West / The Saphead / Seven Chances / 21 Short Films)
Starring: Buster Keaton
Manufacturer: Kino Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Classics | Genres | DVD | Video
General | Silent Films | Classics | Genres | DVD | Video
General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video
( A ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Comedy | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video
Used DVDs | Stores | DVD | Video | Action & Adventure | African American Cinema | Animation | Anime & Manga | Art House & International | Classics | Comedy | Cult Movies | Documentary | Drama | Educational | Fitness & Yoga | Gay & Lesbian | Horror | Kids & Family | Military & War | Music Video & Concerts | Musicals & Performing Arts | Mystery & Suspense | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Special Interests | Sports | Television | Westerns
Similar Items:

The Chaplin Collection, Vol. 2 (City Lights / The Circus / The Kid / A King in New York / A Woman of Paris / Monsieur Verdoux / The Chaplin Revue / Charlie - The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin)

The Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection Vols. 1-3

Buster Keaton Collection (The Cameraman / Spite Marriage / Free & Easy)

The Chaplin Collection, Vol. 1 (Modern Times / The Great Dictator / The Gold Rush / Limelight)

Buster Keaton - 65th Anniversary Collection (General Nuisance / His Ex Marks the Spot / Mooching Through Georgia / Nothing but Pleasure / Pardon My Berth Marks / Pest From the West / So You Won't Squawk / The Spook Speaks / The Taming of the Snood / She's Oil Mine)

ASIN: B00005QW5A
Release Date: 2001-11-20

Amazon.com

Buster Keaton was arguably the cinema's first modernist, an old-fashioned romantic with a 20th-century mind behind a deadpan visage. His films brim with some of the most breathtaking stunts and ingenious gags ever put on film, all perfectly engineered to look effortless. And, as Kino's magnificent 11-disc boxed set The Art of Buster Keaton conclusively shows, they are among the funniest ever made. Keaton warped gags until they left the plane of reality in such shorts as The Playhouse (1921) and The Frozen North (1922), and takes a logic-defying leap into the very nature of cinema itself in his hilarious Sherlock Jr. (1924). He takes on the mechanical world with Rube Golberg ingenuity in The Navigator (1924) and perfects his match between man and massive machine in Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928), which features the funniest hurricane scene ever put to film, and The General (1927), one of the greatest comedies of all time.

In addition to the previously released 11 features and 19 shorts from the peak of Keaton's career, this set boasts the exclusive Keaton Plus, a collection of rarities and tributes. The greatest find is the long-lost ending to Hard Luck (1921), now restored to complete the film's final inspired gag. Other highlights include newly discovered scenes from Daydreams (1922) and The Love Nest (1923), entertaining excerpts from Keaton's 1951 TV show Life with Buster Keaton (he's still got it!), and his rare dramatic turn in the 1954 television play The Awakening. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews:

Genius.......2007-05-18

SO glad I spent literally half a paycheck on this collection . Keaton was , quite simply , brilliant . His amazing stunts and incredible agility put so many present-day actors to shame . As for that signature "stone face"....The man could say so much more with his eyes than any spoken words could ever express . Truly unsurpassed talent .

Buying Asian versions.......2007-01-10

I know spending $100 seems expensive when you can buy an Asian copy on eBay for $30 or $40. But when you do that, nothing is going to David Shepard to compensate him for acquiring these films, transfering them to video, doing some restoration, and adding a sound track. Even if these films are in the public domain, they don't save themselves. It takes time and money to do that. Please help preserve our rapidly disintegrating silent film heritage and buy the DVDs produced by the people doing the work of preservation.

In Buster Keaton's memory!.......2006-11-02

Buster Keaton still remains among the most reduced and even exigent list of the greatest exponents of the comedy genre.

It has been a common place to establsih the comparison between his craft and Charlot, and in this particular if I was inquired, I would say the main virtue of Keaton's grandess and obviously his personal landmark, is the kaleidoscopic vision he always around the characters and situations; while Charlot turned around the sentiments and the hope for a new and promising future, Keaton showed a demolishing narrative speech, hovered by a corrosive humor, deeply human but extremely devastating.

On the other hand, the resource economy and the emblematic expression of his facial grimace was another engaging tool to captivate the audiences.

I admire both of them and consider they represent the two sides of the same coin. Humanity above any other artistic considerations or sharp differences, was in last instance, the common denominator around these two genius of the intelligent humor.

A must for the hard collectors.

Reeeealy close, but not quite a cigar.......2005-11-03

First off, Keaton is one of the great artists of all times, and it's a joy to have such a complete collection of his silent work. (His last few silents, The Cameraman and Spite Marriage, and his sound films are a far cry from Keaton's best, and I suggest leaving them alone unless you're the absolute completist.) Kino has done a superb job on the features, restoring them to the best they've looked in decades and adding funny, unobtrusive musical scores. A perfect 5 here.

So what's not to like? I am saddened by the treatment of the shorts on these discs. They have *not* been restored, and my impression is that they were taken from 16mm prints with wildly variable (and often quite poor) soundtracks. Keaton's shorts are every bit as wonderful and fascinating as his features, and for Kino to foist these second-rate prints off on us makes me sad.

If I could, I'd give 4.5 stars for this collection. Be prepared for a bit of a disappointment when running the shorts.

Contents of the set.......2005-09-25

Before anything else, I agree with those who say that Keaton's shorts are all good; but I strongly disagree with those who say that they are better than his better features. What usually happens with comedy is that people sit down before the screen and just say: OK, make me laugh. Keaton's features are funny -but they are also, and more important, beautifully shot, superbly acted and perfectly structured -which is something only the best actors/directors can put all together. There are no cheap sets like in most movies of the 20's. Keaton's characters move in the real world, with real things, and that's part of what makes them lasting and unique.

In your shelves, Keaton shouldn't share his place with the Marx Brothers, but with Orson Welles (who called The General the best movie ever made about the Civil War) and Martin Scorsese (who said he watched over and over the final fight in Battling Butter -which, by the way, is not supposed to make you laugh, but to surprise you with it's realism)

Now, this are the complete contents of this DVD set. Aside from it, you should check out The Buster Keaton Collection, which includes THE CAMERAMAN, SPITE MARRIAGE and FREE AND EASY - and then you are done. Well, you could also read the only book he wrote -My Wonderful World of Slapstick. (June '06 Update: "Industrial Strength Keaton"(DVD) just came out. The set includes rare industrial films, promotional films, commercials, TV appearances and outtakes.)

The Saphead: 1920
Includes the shorts ONE WEEK (1920) and THE HIGH SIGN (1920)

The Three Ages
Year: 1923
Including THE GOAT (1921) and MY WIFE'S RELATION (1922).

Our Hospitality / Sherlock, Jr.
Year: 1923/1924

The Navigator
Year: 1924
Includes shorts The Boat (1921) and The Love Nest (1923).

Go West
Year: 1925
Includes THE SCARECROW (1920) and THE PALEFACE (1921).

Seven Chances
Year: 1925
Shorts: Neighbors (1920) & The Balloonatic (1923)

Battling Butler
Year: 1926
Includes THE HAUNTED HOUSE (1921) and FROZEN NORTH (1922).

The General
Year: 1926
shorts: The Playhouse (1921) and Cops (1922)

College
Year: 1927
Includes THE ELECTRIC HOUSE (1922), HARD LUCK (in this version the ending is missing; but the complete version is found in the disc called Keaton Plus) (1921) and THE BLACKSMITH (1922).

Steamboat Bill, Jr.
Year: 1928
shorts: Convict 13 (1920) and Daydreams (1922)

Keaton Plus
Year: 1920-2001
Color home movies, complete short HARD LUCK, two Shorts from the 30's, commercials, TV shows and appearances. But best of all, Orson Welles talking about Keaton and The General.

Average customer rating:

A range of comedy styles
Keaton's marriage life slapstick farce
One of the funniest
Best Chance for Buster
All we are saying is give Keaton a chance

Seven Chances
Starring: Lori Bara , T. Roy Barnes , Bartine Burkett , Rosalind Byrne , and Erwin Connelly
Manufacturer: Kino Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Classics | Genres | DVD | Video

Classic Comedies | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $14.99 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

( S ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Our Hospitality/Sherlock, Jr.
The Navigator
Steamboat Bill, Jr.
Go West
Three Ages

ASIN: 6305701261
Release Date: 2000-01-11

Amazon.com

The reputation of Buster Keaton's Seven Chances rests almost solely on its outrageous finale, a brilliant cascade of comic invention that begins with a church full of blushing brides and builds to a surreal chase of epic proportions. The hapless groom is pursued by a angry mob of women clad in white lace and veils and ends up dodging rolling stones and massive boulders while fleeing an avalanche, never once losing his trademark deadpan. Buster plays a struggling lawyer who will inherit a fortune if he marries by 7 p.m. of his 27th birthday--the very day he receives notice of the potential windfall. When his longtime sweetheart turns him down, he frantically searches for someone--anyone--to wed. While Seven Chances doesn't have the sustained inspiration of his best films, Keaton fills the picture with inventive moments and clever ideas, notably a sustained series of desperate proposals (the "seven chances" of the title) that lead to the climactic swarm of aggressive brides. The biggest weakness is an embarrassing blackface performance that has only become more offensive with the years. Jean Arthur briefly appears as a switchboard operator. The film was remade in 1999 as The Bachelor with Chris O'Donnell. The DVD also features two short films: "Neighbors," the story of young lovers who flirt across the fence that separates their houses and their bickering families, and "The Balloonatic," which despite the presence of a hot air balloon is actually a gag-filled camping comedy. --Sean Axmaker

Description

Love has never been funnier or more difficult to manage than in the immortal Buster Keaton comedies brought together on this DVD. Opening with a newly restored Technicolor sequence, "Seven Chances" (1925, 56 min.) is a film often imitated but never rivaled for hilarity and visual virtuosity. Keaton stars as Jimmie Shannon, a romantically jinxed young man who must marry by 7:00 pm to inherit seven million dollars. Comedic courtship is further pursued in "Neighbors" (1920, 18 min.), a 1920 short in which Buster tries to woo his tenement sweetheart in spite of the barriers that stand between them. Then, in "The Balloonatic" (1923, 22 min.), Buster is carried by hot air from a cityside amusement park to the rustic country where--in a series of delightfully inventive vignettes--he ineptly struggles for survival and again somehow manages to stumble into romance.

Customer Reviews:

A range of comedy styles.......2006-11-15

This thoughtfully prepared collection of 3 Buster Keaton movies, 2 shorts from early and late in his pre-feature period, and the feature Seven Chances, show a wide range of comedy styles, from slapstick, to more refined visual humor, to what we would today call situation comedy, where laughs come from unusual or embarrassing encounters.

The earliest in the collection, "Neighbors" from 1920 is in some way the most satisfying of the set, although Keaton had not yet here fully developed his mature style of humor. Here there is still a stylistic resemblance to the earlier association with Fatty Arbuckle. The backyard love affair, for example, that opens the film resembles Arbuckle's 1915 classic "Fatty's Plucky Pup". In Neighbors there is more story, revolving around the standard theme of feuding parents, and the eventual need for the couple to elope. There is sweetness, youthful energy, and innocence in the entire movie, as well as great acrobatics, including the innovative climactic escape involving two levels of men being carried on the shoulders of other men.

The Balloonatic (1923), near the end of the period in which Buster was making short films, is less rich in comic ideas and lacks the energy and freshness of the earlier film. There is almost no slapstick but rather visual humor involving being trapped in a balloon and trying to survive in the wild and win an unwilling girl. Keaton loves using bodies of water and other objects of nature for comedic props, and this film is full of them. Still, for once Keaton seems uninspired, perhaps making this film to fulfill a contract requirement rather than for love of the story.

The feature in the set, Seven Chances, from 1925, is based on a single theme: Buster, the rich boy down on his luck, must get married by the end of the day in order to inherit 7 million dollars. This absurd premise induces, for much of the film, a Hal Roach-like situation comedy rather than the visual, acrobatic style that is more associated with Keaton, as Buster is cornered into continuously proposing marriage to strangers. The variety of embarrassing rejections that Buster must endure has funny moments, but may not satisfy all of Buster's fans. The climax, however, returns us to tried and true Keaton formula: the lone man being chased by a thundering herd, in this case, of angry women in full wedding apparel, fed up at being duped by a newspaper ad submitted by Buster's colleague unbeknownst to Buster. The chase has satisfying moments, including Buster dodging large bolders. Although worth seeing, the reliance on the single absurd premise makes this film feel more like a dragged out short movie than a genuine feature. The result is a slightly less satisfying encounter with Keaton's genius.

Keaton's marriage life slapstick farce.......2006-09-28

This splendid slapstick farce was Keaton's revenge to the tensions and bitterness of the marriage life with his first wife, Nathalie Talmadge. The film is a torrent of very calculated sight-gags with a unstoppable rythm that arrives to its "climactic" explosion in the spectacular scene in which the character incarnated by Keaton, a wrecked lawyer who have to be married by 7 p.m. of his 27th birthday to inherit a big fortune ( this is, in 24 hours ), must choose between five hundred spiteness brides or a rocks avalanche. The film knew a very poor remake in 1998 called " The bachelor ". Another masterwork of one of the greatest technician and comic artists of cinema.

This DVD edition contains too the early Keaton's shorts : "Neighbors" ( 1920 ), a shakesperian underground farce and " The balloonatic "( 1920 )

One of the funniest.......2006-08-01

This is one of the funniest, most clever videos in my collection. The short film "Neighbors" is full of ingenious physical comedy. You can see how being the son of a family of acrobats has filtered into Buster Keaton's performance style.

Best Chance for Buster.......2004-07-30

Frankly, I'd been a bit disappointed in the Buster films I'd seen before this one. Perhaps it was the scrappy condition they'd reached me in. This film, however, turned out to be a treasure and a masterpiece. Finally I became fully aware of how funny and downright amazing Keaton could be. It's strange that other viewers report that he didn't like it himself. Personally, I enjoyed the obviously well-structured plot, the elegant clothes, Buster's incredible athleticism, and as the story came to its ever zanier climax I was laughing out loud, very loud. Aside from the obvious fact that the whole world, not just Hitler's Germany, was unbelievably racist in the 1920s, there seems to be something of a feminist message underlying this story. One of the best scenes is where the vast army of women on the rampage totally flatten two football teams. Yikes, here comes women's lib! I'll grab my hat and run.

All we are saying is give Keaton a chance.......2004-02-06

I'm at a bit of a loss to explain what I thought about SEVEN CHANCES (1925) as a whole, because I had such a mixed reaction to it. The beginning and middle go from being sort of fun to being downright offensive. It's the last twenty or so minutes that save this fifty-six minute feature. They're absolutely terrific and encapsulate all of the things that Buster Keaton did so well.

The premise for this movie is overly simplistic and rather contrived, but then again, we aren't looking for Machiavellian plots out of most romantic comedies. Buster Keaton finds himself as the recipient of a large inheritance. As one could guess, this windfall comes with a catch: if he is married before seven o'clock on his twenty-seventh birthday, he gets the cash. If he isn't married by that time, then he gets nothing. (Wouldn't we all love to put weird catches like that into our last will and testament? I'm planning to withhold everything from my next-of-kin until they put on a clown suit and run down Interstate-270 during rush-hour shouting the lyrics to Eminem's "Lose Yourself".) Since it turns out that today is the unmarried Keaton's twenty-seventh birthday, he races around desperately trying to tie the knot with someone -- anyone. Naturally, there is one special woman who we all know that he's supposed to end up with, but we have to wait until the very end for the movie to reward us with the anticipated conclusion.

If that plot summary sounds familiar to any reader out there, it's probably because the film was remade recently with Chris O'Donnell in the Buster Keaton role. I haven't seen that version of the movie, and I can only assume that the decision was made because a movie mogul had some sick desire to see the words "Chris O'Donnell" and "Buster Keaton" in the same sentence. This movie is less successful when sticking close to its initial foundation. Indeed, the Keaton character's unwillingness to marry outside his WASP background is responsible for two of the more uncomfortable moments. (What is it with this disc and bizarre attitudes towards race? I know it was a less enlightened time, but I've been making my way through the "Art of Buster Keaton" DVD box set and the stuff here really stands out as unusual. And one of the included short films has its own groan-worthy sequences: would any cop really be so dimwitted as to be confused about Buster Keaton's ethnic background just because of some mud on his face?)

What this film is mostly remembered for is its incredible chase sequence that more or less takes up the entire last third. Suddenly realizing that there is only One True Woman that he can possible wed, Keaton must escape the clutches of the thousands of would-be brides who want to get their hands on Keaton and his cash. This leads to sequences of several hundred extras in wedding gowns racing through the city streets, which is almost as funny a visual as the hundreds of angry police-officers chasing Keaton in one of his short films (the aptly named COPS). But it's Keaton's physical dexterity that makes this memorable.

For example, after escaping the city, he races across countryside. He comes to a cliff and quickly throws himself off it, reaching out and grabbing a tree to save his fall... a tree that is being chopped down and which slowly topples as soon as Keaton lands on it. Undeterred, he immediately gets right back up and starts running again. A few minutes later, he's racing down a rocky hill, inadvertently causing a rockslide. Watching Keaton sprinting down a sandy incline while dodging large boulders is amazing. At one point, he comes to a standstill and concentrates solely on avoiding the rocks. He leaps over some. Others he ducks under. He jumps to the left to dodge them. He jumps to the right. My first thought on watching this was that Keaton got himself into a live-action version of Donkey Kong, with fake boulders instead of barrels. I love this sort of Keaton stunt work where I can both admire and laugh at a sequence at the same time.

Also included are two short films. The first item on offer is NEIGHBORS (1920). This one reminded me quite a bit of Chaplin's EASY STREET (a long time favorite of mine), at least the parts where Charlie is jumping in and out of windows and doors to avoid the mighty Eric Campbell. Here, Keaton is attempting to get some alone time with daughter of the house next door, and using a electrical-cable as a zip-line is just one of his inventive stunts. A hilarious short and one full of great physical comedy.

The other short film is THE BALLOONATIC. The eponymous balloon serves merely as the McGuffin to deposit Keaton into a surreal camping adventure. You can't help but love the completely straightforward way Keaton's character always dealt with life. You see a hot-air balloon? Start climbing all over it! You drop out of the sky into a remote forest that's miles from anywhere? Never mind getting home -- just have a vacation right here and now! This print is very scratchy, but it's still quite watchable.

Although I was faintly bored by most of the main feature's first forty minutes, this disc is well worth the purchase for everything that comes after that: the incredible and hilarious extended chase sequence and the two inventive short films.

DVD:

DVD

Night Marchers [Special Edition] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

DVD: The Beginner's Bible - The Story of the Nativity

Dinnerladies - The Complete Second Series