Buster Keaton and a whole lot of gold diggers.

Although it is based on a play, Buster Keaton directs Seven Chances well out of the confines of a stage.  He puts so much action and chases into it, that I cannot even imagine this as a play.  One of the funniest moments happens in a car while trying to propose to a girl in another moving vehicle.

Seven Chances opens with shy financial broker Jimmie Shannon trying to get up the nerve to tell his girlfriend Mary that he loves her.  Meanwhile he and his business partner Billy are nearly bankrupt.  One day a lawyer shows up at their office with Jimmie's grandfather's will.  Jimmie will inherit seven million dollars if Jimmie can get married before 7 pm that day, his 27th birthday.  The movie never says why there is a deadline.

Jimmie immediately heads to Mary's house to ask for her hand, but she does not want to get married in a hurry, and refuses his proposal.  Depressed and desperate for the money to save the firm, Jimmie starts asking every girl he meets to marry him.  Everyone turns him down. 

As was common in silent comedies, the film has some bigoted jokes.  In one scene, he comes up behind a woman on the street to propose.  Upon seeing that she is black, he makes an immediate u-turn.   He also sits next to a woman on a bench, but before he can propose notices that she is reading a newspaper typed in Hebrew.  He runs off.   Then there is the black farm hand played by a white man in black face. 

With Jimmie finding no takers, Billy decides to put an ad in the newspaper announcing Jimmie's dilemma and potential financial gain.  This causes hundreds of unattractive women to start chasing after Jimmie.  This leads to Keaton's largest chase scene this side of Cops (1922).  They pursue him through town and country.  The chase scene is long and contains the film's greatest stunts.  One of the best moments involves Keaton running down a hill in the middle of a rock slide.

Seven Chances was remade as The Bachelor (1999), starring  Chris O'Donnell.  It features such famous women as Brooke Shields and Mariah Carey in cameos.  Seven Chances did the same with Jean Arthur and Constance Talmadge, although Arthur was hardly at her height of fame.

Seven Chances demonstrates Keaton's talents well.  As director, star and stuntman he is amazing to watch, and this is one of his finest films.

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