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Cops

1922·US
Director: Edward F. Cline, Buster Keaton
ComedyAdventureFamily
American ComedyPioneers: Buster Keaton

Nineteen minutes of the most perfectly escalating chaos in silent comedy. Buster Keaton plays a hapless young man who inadvertently gets tangled up in a police parade, acquires a cartload of furniture, and through a series of increasingly absurd misunderstandings becomes the target of the entire Los Angeles police force. What follows is one of cinema's great chase sequences — Keaton alone against hundreds of cops, dodging and weaving through city streets with the serene, unflappable grace that made him unique among comedians. The film's construction is a marvel of comic engineering, each gag building logically on the last, and its climax — involving a bomb, a crowd, and impeccable timing — is one of Keaton's most celebrated moments. Pure kinetic joy.

Nineteen minutes of the most perfectly escalating chaos in silent comedy. Buster Keaton plays a hapless young man who inadvertently gets tangled up in a police parade, acquires a cartload of furniture, and through a series of increasingly absurd misunderstandings becomes the target of the entire Los Angeles police force. What follows is one of cinema's great chase sequences — Keaton alone against hundreds of cops, dodging and weaving through city streets with the serene, unflappable grace that made him unique among comedians. The film's construction is a marvel of comic engineering, each gag building logically on the last, and its climax — involving a bomb, a crowd, and impeccable timing — is one of Keaton's most celebrated moments. Pure kinetic joy.

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Explore Further

film essay for 'Cops' — Library of Congress

Library of Congress preservation essay on Keaton's political chase comedy and police slapstick.

Article

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Streaming data by JustWatch

Cast

Buster Keaton

Buster Keaton

The Young Man

Edward F. Cline

Edward F. Cline

Hobo (uncredited)

Virginia Fox

Virginia Fox

Mayor's Daughter (uncredited)

Steve Murphy

Steve Murphy

Conman Selling Furniture (uncredited)

Joe Roberts

Joe Roberts

Police Chief (uncredited)

Crew

Edward F. Cline

writer

Elgin Lessley

cinematographer

Buster Keaton

writer

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