Slapstick Comedy

One of my favorite types of comedy is slapstick. As I was growing up, my father and I would watch Abbott and Costello movies and laugh at the back and forth dialogue and the classic scenes where Costello would see something and react in a very outrageous way such as in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Costello sees Dracula, goes running in the opposite direction, and runs right into Abbott.

There are some very similar scenes in Sherlock Jr. One that made me chuckle was the classic slip on the banana peel. He tried to coax his peer to walk across the banana peel and fall to lessen his chances with the lovely lady, but instead he accidentally walks on it and falls to the ground in a very comedic way. Another scene that I really enjoyed was when he falls asleep during the showing of the movie and his dream self waltzes onto the screen and into the movie. Each scene change would cause him to fall in some way and I thought it was very effective in this scene. Although the compilation of him falling was very amusing, I don't think it really added to the story any.

Overall, I think the stunts are fun and quite edgy for its time. Compared to the kind of comedy we see every day, this is very different and sadly I don't think most people would enjoy it. Not many films do slapstick these days since our society is so strongly focused on spoken words. I really enjoyed the film and found it to be amazingly done for its time.