Main Cast: Buster Keaton, Ruth Dwyer, T. Roy Barnes, Snitz Edwards, Frankie Raymond
Release Year: 1925
Country: US
Run Time: 6rl minutes
Plot
Buster Keaton plays a young lawyer who will inherit $7 million at 7 o'clock on his 27th birthday--provided he is married. Long before discovering this, Keaton has pursued a lifelong courtship of Ruth Dwyer, whose refusals have become ritualistic over the years (the passage of time is amusingly conveyed by showing a puppy grow to adulthood). He proposes again, but this time she turns him down because she thinks (mistakenly) that he wants her only so that he can claim his inheritance. The doleful Keaton is thus obliged to spend the few hours left before the 7 PM deadline in search of a bride--any bride. He has no luck whatsoever until his pal T. Roy Barnes prints the story of Keaton's incoming legacy in the local newspaper. As a result, literally hundreds of women, bedecked in veils and bearing bouquets, chase Keaton through the busy streets of Los Angeles. When Keaton's producer Joseph M. Schenck bought the film rights to the Roi Cooper Megrue stage play Seven Chances, Keaton opted to forego most of the play's plot complications, devoting his energies to the bride-hunting vignettes and the climactic slapstick chase. The final scenes originally laid an egg with preview audiences--until the sequence was saved by "three little rocks." During the closing moments of the chase, Buster accidentally dislodged three small stones in the ground, which rolled after him as he escaped the thundering herd of would-be brides. The audience laughed immoderately at the tiny rocks, thereby inspiring Keaton to reshoot the ending, utilizing scores of huge, rolling boulders. The extra effort worked beautifully; while not his best silent feature, Seven Chances contains one of Keaton's most hilarious finales. Watch for Jean Arthur in a bit as a receptionist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Buster Keaton's fifth feature proved once again that, regardless of his virtuosity with trains, boats, and houses, Keaton's greatest comic prop was his own body. Keaton initially thought the 1916 play about a young man who stands to inherit $7 million if he marries by 7 p.m. that day was not right for him, but, when he accidentally dislodged a couple of rocks during the climactic chase, he literally stumbled on one of his funniest and astonishing flights of slapstick. Reshooting the scene with hundreds of fake boulders ranging from one to eight feet in diameter, Keaton slid and somersaulted down a steep hill, forced to dodge the rocks as well as hundreds of wannabe brides. Even with Keaton's reservations, the rest of Seven Chances is replete with comic and surreal Keaton moments, such as a church filling with potential mates while an unaware Keaton sleeps in the front pew, and a turtle that latches onto Keaton's tie during the chase. With the boulder slide added after a disappointing preview, Seven Chances succeeded with audiences; and it was feebly remade with Chris O'Donnell in 1999 as The Bachelor. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Jules Cowles - Hired Hand; Erwin Connelly - The Minister; Jean Arthur - Receptionist; Marion Harlan; Hazel Deane; Jean Havez - Man on the Landing; Judy King; Barbara Pierce; Connie Evans
Credit
Buster Keaton - Director, Byron Houck - Cinematographer, Elgin Lessley - Cinematographer, Joseph M. Schenck - Producer, Jean Havez - Screenwriter, Clyde Bruckman - Screenwriter, Joseph Mitchell - Screenwriter, Fred Gabourie - Technical Director, Roi Cooper Megrue - Play Author
