Ten years apart these two movies epitomise the careers to two comedy legends. The first, directed by and staring Buster Keaton, is a silent film containing all the stunts and physical excess you’d expect after seeing Sherlock Jr. (1924) and The General (1926). The second is a talkie, directed by Norman Z. McLeod and staring W. C. Fields.

In Seven Chances, Keaton plays a businessman who learns that he has the possibility of inheriting a large amount of money from his dead grandfather. The condition for this inheritance is that he be married by 7pm on his 27th birthday – which happens to fall on the day he hears the news. the first half of the film features his bungled attempts to find someone to marry at the last minute and his subsequent distancing from his true love. The second half (and the most memorable) features an extended chase after Keaton accidentally incurs the wrath of hundreds of women. He is pursued across the city and, eventually, down a ravine accompanied by an avalanche of boulders.

It’s a Gift (1934) also features a man trapped by a legal decision. Fields plays Harold Bissonette, a henpecked grocer who spends his family savings on a California orange ranch. Despite being told of how dilapidated it is, Bissonette pursues his dream and takes his bickering family on a road-trip across the continent to meet his fate. the film is packed with great one-liners and moments of elegant physical comedy – less dramatic than Keaton but equally well crafted. Notable moments include the chaos caused by a blind man in the Bissonette’s shop and his attempt to shave despite his family members invading his bathroom space.

Both are worth watching, the former as a well-balanced example of Keaton’s genius (as an alternative to his masterpiece The General), the latter for Field’s surprisingly balletic approach to physical comedy and his brilliant turn of phrase.