Sidewalks of New York

Keaton always referred to this film as a horror. No, it's not "The General" or "Our Hospitality". As in "Doughboys", another sound film with bad reputation which turns out to be very, very funny, Buster is paired with Cliff "Jiminy Cricket" Edwards. The chemistry between them is much better than the later pairing of Keaton with Jimmy Durante. The film is co-directed by Jules White, the driving force behind the Columbia short comedies from 1934 through 1958. We even see Keaton performing a routine done only a few years later by Curly Howard in "Disorder in the Court". Though the routine is more suited to Curly's comedy style, Keaton is very funny in this sequence. White was a director who believed that if something wasn't funny, at least make it fast and make it violent. White's reliance on comic violence is at odds with Keaton's art and is even more apparent in the comedy shorts Keaton made at Columbia in the late '30s and '40s. Interestingly, this film introduces a group of kids referred to as "East Side Kids". Did Sam Katzman get his inspiration here? One will never know.