Remember in "It's Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" when the Three Stooges showed up as obviously buffoonish firemen? Imagine the damage they could have done in this scenario where Buster Keaton is so incompetent that he's transferred from the NYC fire department to somewhere in the suburbs and probably won't last a day because of his incompetence. Certainly, most people who have been through an actual fire will not find this funny, but when put into the context of a comedy short where dangerous situations often became funny because of the physical tension, it can be hysterical. Keaton here looses his truck blocks away from the actual fire, connects a hose and heads into the fire chief's home, encounters his sarcastic wife, and by chance, finds an actual fire. Comedy shorts are mostly nonsense in realism terms, and work mainly because of Keystone Cops like gags. This is reminiscent in that way, making this one for me a fairly amusing bit of slapstick.
Review of Blue Blazes
