In Hard Luck, Buster Keaton is so poor and hungry and filled with despair he becomes totally suicidal. This leads him to take up fox hunting for some reason. I do not know why.
This one veers all over place, in plot, tone, and quality. Buster’s attempts at suicide eventually give way to a fishing interlude, a hunting expedition, a good old fashion face off with bandits, and finally some romance at the swimming pool. The good bits are good, the not so good bits are not so good. So it goes.
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Notes
1. I watched this on blu-ray, but captured the screenshots from this version on youtube.
2. Which doesn’t actually include Buster’s amazing dive off the diving board for some reason.
3. Probably because Hard Luck was lost for years
4. And then only found in partial form until a more complete version was found relatively recently.
5. I would just like to say here how beautiful smoke always looks in these old silent films.
6. I don’t know why but it does.
7. Such as in the shoot-out scene here
8. This film also contains a lot of animals (dogs, horses, oxen, foxes, fish, bears).
9. Which is nice.
10. And the escalating series of absurd ways in which Buster attempts to mount and dismount a horse is pretty wonderful.
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Film Information
Title: Hard Luck
Directors: Buster Keaton, Edward F. Cline
Year: 1921
Runtime: 22 minutes
Watch: youtube