Close Up

20 September 2015: Cops + Battling Butler

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Cops
 Edward F. Cline, Buster Keaton
1922 | 20 min | B/W | Digital

A wonderful example of Buster Keaton's film artistry. A carefully orchestrated series of gags in which he plays an innocent who tries to impress his girl by attempting to become a tycoon, winding up inextricably caught in a police parade, which breaks up to pursue him.  

Battling Butler
Buster Keaton
1926 | 68 min | B/W | Digital

Based on the Broadway play, the story revolves around a case of mistaken identity between two Alfred Butlers – one a millionaire, the other a heavyweight champion of the world. Coincidence brings them to the same backwoods Kentucky neighbourhood, where Butler-the-Fop finds love with a mountain girl, but not before antagonising Butler-the-Brute into a Madison Square Gardens grudge match.


Part of our Buster Keaton season