Buster Keaton's style of humor is fairly well-known for its dark edge, but the starting premise of Hard Luck is a bit extreme even by his standards. Penniless and down on his luck, evicted from the simple shelter of a drug store window, he sets out to end his own life via whatever means he can scrape together.
Alas, even this macabre escape eludes him, though not for lack of trying. Like the bleak suicide montage that would run through the second act of Bill Murray's Groundhog Day, seventy years later, there's a wild sense of taboo delight linking these lightning-quick flashes of easy death; unity through the sheer, helpless futility of it all. In failing to do himself in, Buster hits his rock bottom, finds his feet, and (inspired by the fuzzy embrace of a stiff drink, fortuitously mislabeled as a poison) musters the courage to immediately tackle brighter pursuits. In these, he finds no better luck - fishing, hunting and high-diving being no easier than suicide - but, again, we're delighted to see him fail upward. Whether trying to improve himself or end himself, Keaton can't break his date with destiny.
The pacing can be a bit jagged (owing to the film's long-term status as a lost gem, only partially reconstructed in 1987) and the ending is an absurd non-sequitur, but the daring, off-color subject matter is striking and (as always) there's no shortage of good, silly, physical comedy to be had. I'd love to see the complete, Keaton-approved first cut.
Alas, even this macabre escape eludes him, though not for lack of trying. Like the bleak suicide montage that would run through the second act of Bill Murray's Groundhog Day, seventy years later, there's a wild sense of taboo delight linking these lightning-quick flashes of easy death; unity through the sheer, helpless futility of it all. In failing to do himself in, Buster hits his rock bottom, finds his feet, and (inspired by the fuzzy embrace of a stiff drink, fortuitously mislabeled as a poison) musters the courage to immediately tackle brighter pursuits. In these, he finds no better luck - fishing, hunting and high-diving being no easier than suicide - but, again, we're delighted to see him fail upward. Whether trying to improve himself or end himself, Keaton can't break his date with destiny.
The pacing can be a bit jagged (owing to the film's long-term status as a lost gem, only partially reconstructed in 1987) and the ending is an absurd non-sequitur, but the daring, off-color subject matter is striking and (as always) there's no shortage of good, silly, physical comedy to be had. I'd love to see the complete, Keaton-approved first cut.