The Frozen North (1922) Reviews

• One for silent movie buffs

  Damfino18952002-01-08

  I like this movie, even if it isn't one of his best. We liked 'Bad' Buster simply because it went against the grain. It has lots of clever ideas and tons of references to the movies of the day, the scene where a tear trickles melodramatically down his cheek is a dig at William S Hart,a western actor who always seemed to have a scene where he cried, Hart didn't find the joke funny even if the audiences of the day did. If you are into silent movies then this film will hit it's mark, but, it's enjoyable anyway.

• Darker and Drier

  Polaris_DiB2006-02-06

  I saw the Kino Video transfer of this which came with an introduction that explained that it was incomplete and that most of it is pretty much destroyed. So I didn't really get the whole short, but what I did get I shall comment on. The plot, as it were, is hard to connect because of the missing pieces, but in general it involves Keaton as a very different character than most of his films: this time, as a daringly evil but tragically incompetent ... somebody... that goes around shooting people and chasing women when he's not falling through snow and into frozen lakes. It's quite darker and drier than most of his stuff, as the concrete-faced Keaton goes along shooting and killing person after person... definitely not his usual stuff. I liked the parodies and take-offs he did in this. It was quite funny, the little pokes at melodrama from Hart's work and so on. However, I'd still like to see a complete copy so that I could get an idea on how this movie flows. --PolarisDiB

• Surrealist Keaton

  jtyroler2008-05-12

  I can imagine André Breton, Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy, Man Ray, Luis Buñuel, and Salvador Dali enjoying this Keaton short. A subway station in the frozen north, an attempted holdup of a gambling hall (a gag that only makes sense in the context of a film), the radiator of a sled overheating, golf clubs, a keep off the grass sign sticking up through the snow, etc. The surrealist movement was influenced by the theories of Sigmund Freud and free association and his interpretation of dreams. Considering that The Surrealist Manifesto wasn't written until 1924, so it's very possible that this could have influenced the European surrealists. I realize that this may seem like a lot of extra information, but having some knowledge of surrealism helps make this Keaton short more understandable and enjoyable. Even though this might seem disjointed, there is some logic behind all of this. If you don't believe me, just ask your analyst...

• Keaton Dreaming Movies

  Cineanalyst2005-10-17

  My favorite Buster Keaton two-reelers are the explicitly self-referential ones, which is this film and "The Playhouse" (in addition to the one or two he made with "Fatty" Arbuckle). They may not be his funniest, per se, but I think they are his cleverest. As with "Sherlock, Jr."--the early masterpiece of cinematic reflexivity--the incongruous imagery in "The Frozen North" is explained as being a dream, but that's not explained until the end, unlike the former, which is framed by "reality". ("The Frozen North" is apparently missing some footage, though, so my comments only apply to what I've seen.) "The Playhouse", as well, is explained more quickly as a dream. Keaton often employed the dream explanation as a means of not allowing narratives to seem too ridiculous or implausible, but with such films as "The Frozen North", they take on a new purpose of exploring the similarities and intersections of the two experiences of dreams and movies. Keaton begins with a spoof on William S. Hart's Westerns--playing the bad man, without the good man that Hart inevitably always became in his melodramas. Some humorous black comedy follows. And then, Keaton drops his cowboy outfit for a snazzy white suite and goes after another man's wife, a la Erich von Stroheim's incarnations, with a more obvious reference later to "Foolish Wives". Many of the gags in between don't work, but the ones that do, especially because of their reliance upon other movies, or in their intentional incongruities, are hilarious. Those who don't prefer parody as much, or aren't familiar with the concurrent films of Keaton's times might not enjoy them as much, though. Additionally, others have panned Keaton's lack of a consistent character in the short and the loss of Keaton's typical and morally agreeable comedic persona. These aren't actual errors in the film, as they're explained by it being all a dream, and the guy dreaming it very well could be a morally upstanding fellow; they're personal qualms, which are, of course, fine. If, however, one appreciates "The Frozen North" as a parody and the incongruous plot as representing a dreamlike flow then you might, like me, find this film a highly enjoyable experience.

• Somewhat Odd Short, But Contains Some Very Good Gags

  Snow Leopard2001-10-04

  This is a somewhat odd Keaton short, and not all of it works that well, but it does contain some good material. It was written as a parody of some contemporary melodramas, and as such there are a lot of things that Buster's character does that would make more sense and/or would be funnier to someone familiar with the films that he was parodying. Nevertheless, it has some fine gags, with most of the best ones dealing with deliberate incongruities in the "Frozen North" setting. Keaton's imagination and creativity are evident in a lot of the details, even if the overall result is more uneven than usual.