- Jimmie Shannon (Buster Keaton) has a problem. He's just inherited several million dollars on the condition that he be married by 7 PM on his 27th birthday. The problem, of course, is that it's his 27th birthday. He tries asking the love of his life, Mary (Ruth Dwyer), but the proposal sounds much more convincing in the rehearsal phases. The next step is to cast a wider net, which Jimmie does with the help of his business partner Billy Meekin (T. Roy Barnes) and his lawyer (Snitz Edwards). Some of the girls react with laughter, others with disgust, and things comically go downhill from there. As a final desperate attempt, Meekin puts an ad in the paper asking any women interested in marrying into a fortune to show up at the church by 5. How could that possibly backfire?
- Well, it isn't long before Jimmie is getting chased all over creation by a throng of angry women who surely number in the thousands. The chase starts off in town, but eventually spills over into some nearby lakes, cliffs, and fields, the latter of which are particularly susceptible to rockslides. While Seven Chances is probably most famous for this excellent chase sequence, which includes an amazing chasm hurdle, some impressive toppling trees, and plenty of boulders, I personally found the aforementioned proposal attempts to be at least as entertaining. Sure, the film is pretty average by the standards of Keaton's pre-MGM filmography, but that doesn't mean it isn't terrific.
