This may be my favorite Buster Keaton short. It's Cops, filmed in 1922. Some have suggested that this was Keaton's answer to the then-current scandal involving his friend, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. The suggesters see an analogy in the idea of a guy who's done nothing wrong but is pursued relentlessly by the law for no real reason. Well, okay. If you want to view it that way, be my guest. I don't quite see it. I just think it's a clever, funny film.
Some of that clever, funny film, by the way, was filmed on the streets of Hollywood. 15 minutes and 30 seconds in, there's a scene where Buster runs out of an alley and grabs onto a passing car. That alley was (and still is) on Cahuenga Boulevard, just south of Hollywood Boulevard. It's right next to the big newsstand there…and it doesn't look all that different these days.
