Seven Chances

Seven Chances (1925) is a Buster Keaton silent comedy you can watch online on iFILM. Keaton directed and starred, working at the peak of his creative run at MGM — the same period that gave us The General and Sherlock Jr.

Jimmie Shannon, a broke stockbroker, discovers he stands to inherit seven million dollars — provided he is married by seven o'clock on his twenty-seventh birthday. Today. After seven women turn him down in quick succession, a newspaper announcement goes out. By sundown, hundreds of strangers in wedding dresses are chasing him through the city. Then, fleeing downhill, he dislodges a boulder. Then several hundred boulders.

That avalanche sequence — improvised after test audiences laughed at an accidental rolling rock — became one of the most analysed set pieces in silent film history. At 56 minutes, nothing overstays its welcome. Stream Seven Chances (1925) online on iFILM.