By the time The Blacksmith was released Chaplin was making the change from short comedies like this one to full length films, but his influence on Buster Keaton's work is unmistakable, as in this case. Keaton plays an apprentice to a blacksmith who ends up getting arrested after a fiasco involving a giant magnet placed over the door to his shop. This is some of the funniest stuff in the movie, which started being funny within seconds of beginning. Even the image of Keaton standing under a tall palm tree is a great sight gag, for some reason.
After his boss has been arrested, Keaton finds himself in charge of the shop, and he runs it with lovable incompetence, inventing hilarious solutions to problems that people bring in with their horses and cars. One lady, for some reason, decides to go to a blacksmith when her horseback riding has begun hurting her back, so he gives her a horseback suspension system. Another man brings in a shiny white car, which Keaton proceeds to unwittingly destroy. By far my favorite gag is the one where Keaton manages to hold up a car with a kid's balloon, prompting the kid to shoot the balloon with a pea-shooter.
It's impossible to ignore the similarities between Keaton and Chaplin's tramp (the scene where Keaton cooks his food over the fire in the shop, only to begin pounding it with the hammer when his boss sees him is exactly the kind of thing Chaplin was famous for at the time), but they are both lovably and wonderful characters on their own. This film has an interesting conclusion involving a hasty (to say the least) marriage to one of his clients which leads to another of the film's many great sight gags (not to mention the train, which probably created momentary but genuine tension among the film's original audiences), showing a certain way in which many a honeymoon quite often ended. Just when you think the movie might approach tragedy, it makes you laugh again.
After his boss has been arrested, Keaton finds himself in charge of the shop, and he runs it with lovable incompetence, inventing hilarious solutions to problems that people bring in with their horses and cars. One lady, for some reason, decides to go to a blacksmith when her horseback riding has begun hurting her back, so he gives her a horseback suspension system. Another man brings in a shiny white car, which Keaton proceeds to unwittingly destroy. By far my favorite gag is the one where Keaton manages to hold up a car with a kid's balloon, prompting the kid to shoot the balloon with a pea-shooter.
It's impossible to ignore the similarities between Keaton and Chaplin's tramp (the scene where Keaton cooks his food over the fire in the shop, only to begin pounding it with the hammer when his boss sees him is exactly the kind of thing Chaplin was famous for at the time), but they are both lovably and wonderful characters on their own. This film has an interesting conclusion involving a hasty (to say the least) marriage to one of his clients which leads to another of the film's many great sight gags (not to mention the train, which probably created momentary but genuine tension among the film's original audiences), showing a certain way in which many a honeymoon quite often ended. Just when you think the movie might approach tragedy, it makes you laugh again.