Buster Keaton

  • Speak Easily (1932)

    Speak Easily (1932)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) The more I see of Buster Keaton’s MGM movies, the more I understand why generations of critics haven’t been so kind to them. It’s not as if he’s not funny—you can reliably count on Keaton to get laughs in a split second (such as when he frantically tries to stuff a coat hanger in a suitcase—a split-second gag in a busy scene, and all the more effective for it), through facial expressions or simple physical gestures in the middle of otherwise ordinary sequences. But there’s a feeling, especially in Speak Easily, that he was being forced into a comedy straightjacket that really constrained what he was capable of doing. Much of the initial lack of sparks from Speak Easily comes from the premise—playing a sheltered academic doesn’t quite get Keaton to the kind of comedy that he understood best, and it takes much of the film to get to the point where we get the classic Keaton anarchistic physical comedy… even if Jimmy Durante is there to help shoulder the comic load. Keaton’s passage to the sound era was easier than most—his voice is pleasant and he could deal with dialogue decently enough, but the spark of silent movie years was gone. It doesn’t help that he seems to be playing a character of an ingrate age—his silent films as a young man are very funny and I really enjoyed his cantankerous persona in the last decade of his career, but here he seems in an awkward stage ill-fitting his persona. I still liked Speak Easily—the look at the tribulations of a travelling troupe of comedians is something that I always find interesting—but it really is a shadow of Keaton’s best work.

  • The Passionate Plumber (1932)

    The Passionate Plumber (1932)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) Buster Keaton heads to France in The Passionate Plumber, one of the less-than-impressive movies he did at MGM in the sound film phase of his career. This period is not usually well regarded by film critics, and the step down from his silent era movies is clear. Most of the blame for Keaton’s decline during these years is usually attributed to studio interference—Keaton couldn’t get as much creative freedom working in the MGM system, and his comic setpieces are clearly less ambitious. This being said, you could still see remnants of Keaton’s creative genius even in the MGM films, and The Passionate Plumber does have its shares of flashes.  Taking place in France (but suffering from near-unintelligible French dialogue), the film takes longer than expected to accumulate the comic elements of its climax: Keaton plays an American inventor who runs into another American played by none other than Jimmy Durante, and you can see the film split the comedy between the two: Durante gets the verbal material, whereas Keaton gets the physical—and most of the time, it works: Even in throwaway gestures, Keaton remains supremely gifted in getting laughs out of nothing (including repeatedly slapping people with a glove)… and that’s not even getting into the bigger set-pieces of the film. There’s a really good shot in which he is pursued by a crowd of men going up a staircase, and it somehow resolves by him reversing course and running away downstairs. It’s in those moments that you can still recognize the silent-era Keaton, despite the heavier demands of the inconsequential plot and the lack of opportunity for him to guide the entire film’s comic choreography. I still liked The Passionate Plumber—it’s got its moments despite not being up to Keaton’s silent films. But it’s one of the movies where you most clearly see the missed opportunities in Keaton’s MGM years.

  • Notfilm (2015)

    Notfilm (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2015) Came for Buster Keaton, stayed for Samuel Becket and drifted off thanks to director Ross Lipman. I’m always amazed at the amount of stuff I don’t know, and the link between noted author/playwright Samuel Becket (of “Waiting for Godot” fame) and comedian Buster Keaton was a missing link in my overall culture. What everyone should know before seeing Notfilm is that back in 1965, Samuel Becket somehow managed to convince a bunch of people to make a short 20 minutes experimental film called, well, Film. It starred Buster Keaton and was received like most experimental films—people called it interesting and/or incomprehensible. Forty years later, a filmmaker working on the restoration of Film got the idea of producing an accompanying making-of/retrospective feature called, ahem, Notfilm. The project grew and grew as Lipman interviewed the producers of the film and as many people he could find that had something to say about it. He found very rare audio footage of Becket (who famously disliked being recorded), uncovered intriguing contradictions coming from Becket, and started exploring the multiple facets connected to that summer 1965 shoot in Manhattan. By the time we realize that the cinematographer of Film is the brother of the filmmaker behind 1929’s classic Man with a Movie Camera, and that a teenage Leonard Maltin showed up on set to meet Keaton for the first time, we’re far past the point of wonderment. Becket being from the literary/theatrical world, we have an opportunity to talk about Grove Press and theatre in addition to film. Such an expansive approach to a topic means that Notfilm is often unwieldy. It’s certainly not focused (some information is repeated a few times; the introduction does not introduce Film properly yet spoils much of Notfilm’s later impact), and it’s inconsistently interesting—I was enthralled by matters about Buster Keaton, for instance, but not that interested in explorations of Becket’s oeuvre. My interest varied quite a bit, but at the end I had the impression of having been exposed to a hurricane of trivia, some of it uninteresting but others absolutely fascinating. It’s also refreshing in how it keeps blasting ideas at the viewer and daring them to keep up.

  • Spite Marriage (1929)

    Spite Marriage (1929)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2020) It’s interesting to see Buster Keaton’s Spite Marriage on the heels of its Red-Skelton remake I Doot It. The similarities between the two are friendlier than most—Buster Keaton participated in the remake, and there’s a feeling that he was able to fix some of the structural issues found in Spite Marriage. This first film does feel different — by virtue of having been made in the waning days of the silent era, it minimizes the title cards and lets Keaton’s physical comedy tell the story. (Although, unusually enough, the soundtrack heard today is the one produced for the film, and often has sound effects synchronized for the action… including what’s best described as one of the earliest laugh tracks.) As often happens in Keaton films, the result often feels like two or three comic ideas smashed together: here we have a fan getting a chance to sneak in as an actor in a Broadway play to be close to his favourite actress and botching it completely; a newlywed couple doing their best to avoid consummation, leading to a surprisingly wholesome bedroom routine involving a passed-out partner; and extended hijinks set aboard a yacht. Only the first two acts (roughly the first half of the film) are reused in the remake, with some creative reordering to make for a stronger three-act structure. The original has Keaton at his usual silent self—perhaps not as hilarious as in other movies, but funny enough to warrant attention even for those who don’t really like silent movies. (The relatively short running time, at a bit under 80 minutes, also helps.) Dorothy Sebastian looks better than many other silent-era actresses, and seems game to be Keaton’s foil. Spite Marriage may not be the best introduction to Keaton’s gift for physical comedy, but it’s well worth a look by fans going down his filmography or anyone who (like me) just happened to have seen I Dood It.

  • In the Good Old Summertime (1949)

    In the Good Old Summertime (1949)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2020) Given how much I like Ernst Lubitsch’s The Shop Around the Corner and Buster Keaton and MGM musicals, I should like musical remake In the Good Old Summertime a lot more than the mild liking that I’ve got for it. Compared to everyone else, I’m the curmudgeon going “yeah, but it’s not as good as it could have been.” I strongly suspect that what sets me apart is my lack of affection for Judy Garland in general. Alas, this is a film revolves around Garland, presuming that everyone finds her irresistible. I don’t dislike her—not here, anyway (her decline had begun but wasn’t completely apparent, and there’s a scene early in this film where she lets her hair down and looks remarkably good). On the other hand, the film does put her front and centre of the plot, in which two feuding colleagues strike up an epistolary romance as audiences wait during the entire film for the truth to come out. Updating the time and place from a 1930s leather shop in Vienna to a 1900s musical instrument store in Chicago, In the Good Old Summertime cranks up the singing (inevitable, with Garland around) and dials down the sophisticated comedy in favour of more obvious gags. While I miss Lubitsch’s touch, it’s compensated somewhat by having Buster Keaton make a return to the screen after a long break: he not only designed gags for the movie, but parlayed one complex piece of physical comedy (the split-second destruction of a violin) into an acting role as a klutzy clerk. Elsewhere in the cast, Van Johnson is a decent lead, S. Z. Sakall has a typically good turn and this is technically Liza Minelli’s screen debut—as a three-year-old appropriately cast as Garland’s daughter. While I’m not bowled over by In the Good Old Summertime, it’s generally sympathetic and likable, a decent watch, and it features a few good moments. Just ignore me, as I rant in the corner about wanting more Lubitsch and James Stewart and Buster Keaton.

  • Doughboys (1930)

    Doughboys (1930)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2020) Buster Keaton served in World War I, and one imagines that Doughboys, which see Keaton’s idle-rich character accidentally set to the front, was an outlet of sorts for him. It certainly shows in the film’s more serious nature: while still a comedy, it’s more occasionally amusing than outright funny. Considering the bad years that Keaton had making early talkies at MGM after signing away his creative freedom, it’s a slight balm to find out that he considered this to be the best of his MGM films. Still, Doughboys was only his second sound feature, and the emphasis here is on plot rather than gags. I’m happy I saw it, but it’s not among Keaton’s best films—the ending peters out, and there’s a sense that here’s this comic monster leashed underneath a lot of constraints, both self-imposed and studio-mandated. There are some amusing gags, but it’s the overall plot that’s strong—perhaps as a deference to his own experiences in WWI, the film is not as ferociously funny nor as satirical as his other films, and that’s something to respect.

  • Battling Butler (1926)

    Battling Butler (1926)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) There are good Buster Keaton movies and funny Buster Keaton movies and the relationship between the two isn’t as clear cut as one would guess. The General is perhaps his most narratively successful film, but it’s got comparatively fewer laughs than many others. Conversely, Steamboat Bill, Jr. has a lot of great comic set-pieces, but a fairly dull story. Some films do manage both (Sherlock, Jr. is as good as the mixture gets), but Battling Butler clearly errs on the side of fewer-laughs-better-story. The premise is suitably ridiculous, with a pampered rich-boy protagonist (Keaton, in a familiar naïf role) blurring the distinction between him and a similarly-named boxer in order to win the romantic affections of a girl he just met. “Buster Keaton” and “glamping” aren’t words that seem to go together, but they’re a good description of the film’s first act, with numerous gags about trying to maintain an upper-class lifestyle in the woods. Then it’s off to the film’s main plot, as Keaton has to become a boxer in order to impress a young woman. The chuckles are there, but the film remains distinctively less impressive than its comic highlights. Fortunately, though, the buildup to a dramatically satisfying ending is handled with skill, and the conclusion is quite heartwarming in its own way. Keaton remains the highlight of the film, although Snitz Edwards does get a bit of attention as a valet and Sally O’Neil makes for a lovely heroine along the way. This isn’t often mentioned in Keaton’s upper tier, but it’s likable enough and is worth a look for his fans.

  • Sidewalks of New York (1931)

    Sidewalks of New York (1931)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2020) History tells us that Sidewalks of New York was Buster Keaton’s most financially successful film, which sounds weird considering that it’s certainly not one that has stood the test of time. At the time, Keaton thought that joining a studio was worth trading off his creative freedom for financial backing and, perhaps more importantly, MGM’s distribution muscle at a time when the industry was quickly transitioning to sound. The film did well, but it would weaken Keaton’s reputation as a comedian along the way. In Sidewalks of New York, we can already see a few strange decisions show up. Playing a rich businessman doesn’t suit the Keaton persona very well, for instance, and the insistence in creating a criminal subplot leads to difficult tonal issues that keep bringing the film farther away from comedy. Still, there are a few interesting things along the way: Keaton’s always a gifted physical comedian, and there are good bits of business with a flower pot, furiously attacking an overcooked turkey, and so on. Plus, there’s the attraction of hearing Keaton speak, which is not the case for many of his best-known films. Sidewalks of New York may not rank as one of Keaton’s finest (even in 1931 alone, I rather prefer Parlor, Bedroom and Bath), but it’s worth a look, especially considering that it’s barely 75 minutes long.

  • Our Hospitality (1923)

    Our Hospitality (1923)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (YouTube Streaming, September 2019) I generally like Buster Keaton’s film, but even I have to admit that many of his movies are slow burns to great finales. Our Hospitality is a bit different in that it does have a few highlights to offer along the way to its big finish, perhaps the most fascinating being a mostly accurate rendition of the earliest railways. Even to those with only the mildest interest in railway technical development, this sequence seems almost impossibly folkloric, with open-air carriage wagons being used as railcars, and a track that can be moved at will. (We shouldn’t see this section as a documentary, but Keaton was a confirmed rail enthusiast and portions of what was built for the movie ended up in a museum.)  Otherwise, Our Hospitality does have a solid story, as the survivor of a murderous family feud comes back to town to discover that he has fallen in love with the daughter of the rival clan. There’s drama enough to power the plot (there’s a seriously violent death and escape in the first few minutes of the film, setting up the rest), but the comic conceit comes from the other clan refusing to kill him while he’s in their house, leading to increasingly absurd situations. It all leads to some spectacular stunts later in the film, but at a more sustained pace than many other Keaton features. As a result, Our Hospitality remains one of his most steadily enjoyable movies, and a nice change of pace from some of his more urban-centred features.

  • The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)

    The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2019) Now this is a curio on several levels. Keep in mind that The Hollywood Revue of 1929 was made at a time when sound cinema was just getting started: It was still considered a novelty, and it’s fair to say that Hollywood didn’t quite know what to do with it exactly. A natural idea was to transpose a Broadway revue on-screen: let’s just have the stars walk in, do a bit of music, dance or comedy, record everything and string them along in a plotless experience. Why not? Such a thing would be strikingly inappropriate for the theatrical experience today now that televised variety shows and streaming options can bring the best of the world to our screens at any time, but back in 1929 it wasn’t just a good idea—the result was seriously considered for the first Academy Awards. Of course, there’s quite a cliff from concept to execution: what survives of The Hollywood Revue of 1929 ninety years later is very rough on a technical level: the top of the image seems cut off, the special effects are laughable, the muddy image is of low quality, low contrast and poor sound quality. The dance choreography has little of the polish that we’d see from Busby Berkeley even a few years later. But that it has survived at all is amazing—many movies of that time never made it to this day. It’s quite an experience to see what were, at the time, the studio’s biggest stars—while we still remember Joan Crawford, Buster Keaton (very funny in a small part), and the Laurel and Hardy duo, many of the other people on-screen have faded away in obscurity, known only to early-cinema aficionados. There are a few highlights: Jack Benny’s emceeing routines have their moments. There are a few funny comic routines (including one featuring Lon Chaney). Of the good musical numbers, one number featuring Queen’s Guards dancers is rather good. There’s an early version of “Singin’ in the Rain” (later quoted in the That’s Entertainment! series). Perhaps more strikingly, three very primitive colour sequences mark, I think, the first use of colour I’ve seen in a Hollywood film and it does add an extra dimension in the film. There’s something to be said about the value of such a document travelling through the ages, now available for endless digital copies. In many ways, The Hollywood Revue of 1929 is a primitive form of time travel—what if you were sitting in the middle of the front row at the time’s hottest theatrical entertainment show?

  • How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965)

    How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2019) In the universe of sub-subgenres, the early-sixties beach party musical comedy is as weird and charming as it comes. The basic ingredients were a beach, a few teenagers, Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello (both here in secondary roles), silly bikers, songs, and as much dumb comedy as one can stand. The result is … oddly refreshing, especially when compared to far more serious material. How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, sixth-of-seven movies in the series, features some magical nonsense headed by Buster Keaton in a supporting comic performance, staring at the screen after a particularly inane bit of dialogue saying “and that’s all the plot you’ll get from me.”  Keaton, despite a somewhat racist role, is quite funny—probably funnier than the rest of the film, which is light and dumb and quite proud of it. The ending motorcycle race must be seen to be believed, since it blatantly uses terrible special effects (rear projection, sped-up film, footage running backwards) to portray simple safe stunts as dangerous as possible. Among the musical numbers, Harvey Lembeck gets a bit of a highlight with “Follow your Leader” as he temporarily abandons the biker image for a suit. The gender roles are terrible and that’s part of the film’s dated charm, forthright in what it tries to be. Both Keaton and the Beach Party series would end soon after How to Stuff a Wild Bikini—not exactly a high note, but not an embarrassment either.

  • The Navigator (1924)

    The Navigator (1924)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) Part of the charm of Buster Keaton’s early productions is simply enjoying the flow of his films as they run from one imaginative set-piece to another, never minding the plot or the contrivances required to get there. So it is that with The Navigator, there’s quite a bit of plot business to attend to before landing our lead couple aboard a ship headed to nowhere, after which they learn to live at sea, repair the boat, land on an island filled with (what else?) bloodthirsty cannibals, and fend off their attempts to board the ship. It’s not quite top-notch Keaton, but there are some ideas here and some of the gags land solidly—whether it’s swordfish-to-swordfish combat, learning to cope with shipboard equipment or repelling attackers. An interesting moment, from a cinematographic perspective, has subtitles (in 1924! Yes!) to represent music in-time with a record playing. History notes that Keaton essentially bought the ship on which the film was shot (which had a cursed history of deporting Russians from America) and could do anything he wanted with it, up to sinking it if he wanted. The rest of the film was built around the prop. As a result, it doesn’t quite have the overarching plot of Keaton’s better films (the ending is noticeably weak), nor the grandiose over-the-top gags found in many of those same better movies, but even an average Keaton is still worth watching today.

  • Watch the Birdie (1950)

    Watch the Birdie (1950)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) Comedy is a weird genre: what’s funny today may not feel as amusing decades later, or even with an entirely different audience. So it is that comparing Watch the Birdie soon after its silent-movie inspiration The Cameraman shows the difference between the dumb loquaciousness of Red Skelton’s humour in stark contrast with the smart physicality of Buster Keaton. The correspondence is very, very loose, of course: We’re talking about Watch the Birdie riffing from a bare-bones plot summary of The Cameraman, as a sympathetic gaffe-prone protagonist grabs a camera in an attempt to impress a love interest. But whereas Keaton could only count on gesticulation and title cards, Skelton starts talking over the beginning credits (the film’s funniest sequence, actually) and never stops. He plays three characters (the protagonist, his father and his grandfather), which is one too much—the father character never makes much of an impression, let alone becomes funny in his own right. His humour is hit or miss—he likes making funny faces and looking confused a lot, whereas I think that’s reaching for the dumbest, least subtle comedy there is. As a result, much of Watch the Birdie feels forced—I won’t deny that it has a few laughs (the ending sequence, featuring a car chase with a tall Hyster lumber loader, feels very Keatonesque which may be explained by Keaton being an uncredited advisor for the film), but much of it labours mightily through pratfalls and grimaces. The film feels too long even at 72 minutes, especially considering its structure of gags strung along a loose plot. On the other hand, my first reason for watching the film is justifiable: Ann Miller is not only gorgeous but quite funny as well as she plays an intentionally dumb beauty queen who gets knocked around by male and female characters alike. I take it that Red Skelton did a lot of similar movies in the post-WW2 years, but that none of them are particularly well regarded today—indeed, I probably would have overlooked Watch the Birdie if it hadn’t been of its link to Keaton and Miller.

  • Seven Chances (1925)

    Seven Chances (1925)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) There is definitely a slow-burn quality to Buster Keaton’s Seven Chances, as the film shakes itself from a melodramatic first act (in which a young man must find a bride before the end of the day) all the way to an escalating chase sequence in which Keaton flees before hundreds of women in wedding gown, then a full-blown rock avalanche. The progression wasn’t in the early plans for the film—it’s at the audience preview stage that Keaton understood how to cap his film with its wild climax and went back to shooting in order to complete the film. Still, the result works. From the finer small-scale comic work of its first act, Seven Chances gradually works itself into more ludicrous sight gags, and then one of the great sequences of Keaton’s films in time for the finale. No, it’s not quite as inventive as Sherlock Jr., as demented as Steamboat Bill, Jr. or as finely controlled as The General, but it makes for a good second-tier Keaton feature, and those remain well worth seeing.

  • The Cameraman (1928)

    The Cameraman (1928)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) At his peak, Buster Keaton was a timeless talent, and if The Cameraman is not exactly his finest or funniest film (that would be The General or Sherlock, Jr.), it’s still Keaton in top form, stringing physical gags along a decent-enough plot. Here, we have Keaton playing the kind of earnest but slightly clueless young man out to make a fortune and secure a wife by trying his luck at being a cameraman for MGM newsreels. Switching between courtship in 1920s Manhattan and the comic perils of being a cameraman in the middle of a gangster war, The Cameraman has a stream of physical gags, charming period details, and Keaton keeping a stone-face expression. The premise of the film was later reused for Red Skelton’s Watch the Birdie, but the original film remains the funniest version—no one could (or still can) outdo Keaton. For his fans, The Cameraman is also a bit of a sad junction in his career—his penultimate silent film, and the one where he started losing his independence as a filmmaker, never to return to the heights of his 1923–1928 zenith. Still, never mind that: The Cameraman is a reliably funny film, and one of the few 1920s productions that can still be enjoyed today without compromises.