7.7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
To inherit a fortune, a man races to find a bride by 7 p.m.
Starring: Buster Keaton, T. Roy Barnes, Snitz Edwards, Ruth Dwyer, Frances RaymondRomance | 100% |
Family | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.32:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.33:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English: LPCM 2.0
None
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Buster Keaton supposedly considered his fifth silent feature, 1925’s Seven Chances, to be one of his worst films, but this is just another case
of an artist being unjustly hard on himself. The former vaudevillian’s reticence about the picture stemmed largely from the fact that he hadn’t
personally conceived the project and wasn’t too keen on the story. His producer, Joe Schenck, had paid $25,000 for the rights to a 1916 Broadway flop
and basically forced Keaton to adapt the less-than-inspired source material for the screen, with contractually-obligated help from a co-director who
would be fired just two weeks into the making of the film.
While the movie is notably less ambitious and awe-inspiring than, say, Steamboat Bill, Jr. or The General—and though it’s
extremely short at a scant 56 minutes—Seven Chances is an underappreciated farce that presents Keaton at his most emotionally
sympathetic, his “Great Stone Face” chiseled into an expression of permanent anxiety. It also features an unforgettably crazy chase sequence climax
that involves hundreds of money-grubbing old maids, a precarious dangle from a crane, locomotive near-misses, and an epic avalanche that has Keaton
weaving and dodging between tumbling six-foot-tall boulders. Leave it to Buster—a bonafide slapstick alchemist—to turn a leaden story into comic
gold.
Buster blows another chance...
Kino's Blu-ray treatment of Keaton's films has been uniformly excellent, but Seven Chances might just be the company's best-looking Buster release yet. After a thorough restoration overseen by the Library of Congress, the film is in fantastic shape. The source materials must've been fairly clean to begin with, because the print is sometimes remarkably free of damage and debris. Yes, there are still small white specks and light scratches and isolated instances of warping and flicker, but nothing that would even remotely qualify as distracting. As you've come to expect from Kino, grain is untouched by DNR and the image is free from edge enhancement or other unnecessary digital alterations. The picture displays a wonderful sense of clarity—fine high definition detail is easily visible in faces and costumes—and the tonal balance is near-perfect, with deep blacks and bright but rarely overblown whites. Of course, the major allure here for silent film fans is the opening red/green Technicolor sequence, which has been given a careful frame-by-frame recalibration by film historian and preservationist Eric Grayson, working from the best materials available.
Go-to silent movie composer Robert Israel has cooked up another new score for Seven Chances, and while I wish Kino would've given us some additional (and more vintage) audio options like they have on previous Keaton releases, this track—a ragtime-y patter of piano and drums—suits the film fine. The score is available in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 or Linear PCM 2.0 stereo, and either option works well, with a presentation that's clear and vibrant, if never dynamically boisterous. Even in the 5.1 alignment, the track stays anchored firmly up front, so you're not missing much if you don't have a multi-speaker home theater set-up. There are no subtitle options, of course, but the original intertitles are clean and easy to read.
Kino's Buster Keaton Blu-ray releases over the past two years have been simply phenomenal, and the company's treatment of Seven Chances— one of Keaton's most unjustly undervalued films—is no exception. If you love silent movies, you owe it to yourself to add all of these to your collection. Like the others, Seven Chances looks terrific in high definition, features a newly recorded score, and—minus a snooze-worthy commentary track—comes with some relevant and entertaining extras, including a cracking Three Stooges short. Highly recommended!
Remastered
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