Recommended Readings : Slapstick

This series is a feature that follows my researches and readings about Cinema, Directors, Actors, technique that help me to document properly my interventions on this blog. This light up is also a way to enlighten some titles that may interest you.

Slapstick, Buster Keaton and Charles Samuels

 The one and only autobiography of Buster Keaton recalling his ups and his many downs since his childhood until his revival in the 1950’s working for television.

Short and populated with many anecdotes, these humble memoirs recall the life of a man who wanted to make people laugh and be a simple man. We learn a lot about his vision on his craft and his oppositions with Chaplin, his place in the show-business, and his visions on his life.

Top Films of Buster Keaton by LMdC

As I am writing those lines, I’m halfway through Keaton’s memoirs titled Slapstick. In this anecdotic autobiography we learn how he came into show business with his family’s vaudeville and how he entered in the filmmaking business.

 

The most interesting part is to discover how he was a practical joker and how he always made fun of his peers. However, having read here and there bits and parts of his life there’s not much else to learn. But it’s always rewarding to read about the first stages of the media and how a man who succeeded and then failed sees and perceives the industry.

So without much further ramblings, here’s a top of his feature films:

1. The General

2. Sherlock Jr.

3. The Cameraman

4. Steamboat Bill Jr.

5. Our Hospitality

6. The Navigator

7. Seven Chances

What do you think of this top list? What your’s would look like?

Seven Chances

Seven Chances (Buster Keaton, 1925)

A man learns he will inherit a fortune if he marries. By 7 p.m. Today.

Being the last Buster Keaton film on my Pantheon Director feature, Seven Chances is a race against the clock that displays a frenetic chase that its star is better known to be recognized for. In this 56 minutes movie our little Buster does pretty much what we are patiently expecting from him: comedy, outstanding physical gags, and all that with his legendary stone face.

Jimmy Shannon (Buster Keaton) learns that he must be married by 7 p.m. the day of his 27^th anniversary to inherit the seven million dollars of his grandfather. The love his life (Ruth Dwyer) refuses to marry him when she learns that he proposed only because of the money. Then, he’s going on a chase to find any girl who would be available and willing to marry a man on the same day that she meets him.

The thin plot of the movie and the simple execution of Keaton’s film are the main reasons why this film doesn’t stand amongst the auteur’s better achievements. Some gags are repeated and some are less inspired than others. Making many films in the same year might also be one of the facts that may have brought down Seven Chances. Its story and popularity has inspired many reuses and remakes. To defend itself, Seven Chances has one of the best chase scene of any Buster Keaton you can find. However, the setup of the story seems to be around this superbly executed sequence.

Overall, Keaton’s athletic abilities and his strength in making some of the funniest gags of his time didn’t really held the film as it should. Being one of the lesser Keaton I’ve ever seen I can honestly say that even if it’s a lesser film it is still a good movie and one of the most successful films of its time. Recommended.

Our Hospitality

Our Hospitality (John G. Blystone & Buster Keaton, 1923)

A man returns to his Appalachian homestead. On the trip, he falls for a young woman. The only problem is her family has vowed to kill every member of his family.

Buster Keaton with his second full length feature film shows sparks of genius on the eve of being the great master he was during the golden era of his career from 1923 to 1928. In 1928, he sold his rights to MGM and lost control over his films.

Opening with a prologue telling the facts of a feud that historically occurred between the McCoy and the Hatfield, Keaton transposes with his John McKay/Canfield opposition. Being the only heir of John McKay, the young McKay (Keaton) inherits the family’s estate twenty years after the tragic feud that got both the latest son of each family killed in a gun battle. On his way back from New York City, the place he was raised away from the menace of the Canfield family, young McKay meets Victoria (Nathalie Talmadge, Keaton’s wife) and falls in love for her. What he’ll later discover is that she is the daughter of the Canfield clan.

Set in the 1830’s, this period piece romance drama and comedy uses many different tones and elements of humor. First, it exploits the changes in society without being really a physical type of humor. Keaton slowly sets his story and brings us to his climax. With a long sequence in the train where the young couple meets and get along each other. Filled with many subtle but very keen gags, this sequence is pure genius and astonishing for a Keaton comedy. It is the final moments of the movie with the chase and the waterfall scene are still gripping and are key moments of physical comedy. They are what we ask for in this kind of superb comedy. A Keaton enthusiast acquainted to The General or Sherlock Jr. and even Steamboat Bill Jr. will be a little disoriented in front of the low key elements of comedy of the first half of the film. But once into the film the geniality of Buster Keaton’s mise en scène and gags will get the most of any cinephile willing to let himself appreciate intelligent comedy.

As a whole, Our Hospitality doesn’t have the quality of the aforementioned films but it proves that Keaton and Blystone (co-directing) had the flair and talent to switch from two reels to feature films. The biggest flaw is the lack of character depth and even the young McKay doesn’t really have much background. Victoria and his family is one-dimensional and we only know that they hate the McKays. Another aspect of Our Hospitality is that we feel that Keaton is still exploring and testing the pacing of a 75 minutes movie. However, Our Hospitality is far from being a disaster it is an inspired very good gem. Recommended.

The Cameraman

The Cameraman (Buster Keaton & Edgar Sedgwick, 1928)

Hopelessly in love with a woman working at MGM Studios, a clumsy man attempts to become a motion picture cameraman to be close to the object of his desire.

This is the first official review of my new feature that I hope to get running longer than the last ones I intended. Since, it’s a part of my film buff quest, to watch the entire list of the 1000 Greatest Films of All Time of the Website They Shoot Pictures Don’t They?, this new feature available on your left by the label Pantheon Directors, must be a more sizable goal to achieve. Starting with one of the few Buster Keaton films left on the list that I needed to see, I wanted to be able to fully judge if I’m still more of a Charlie Chaplin kind of person or if my heart will switch to “The Great Stone face”. This goes out to the good old adversity of Chaplin vs. Keaton or Keaton vs. Chaplin. Well, it ends up that even the most respected film critics don’t agree.

With The Cameraman Keaton does what he knows best while clearly injecting some melancholy and maybe a little bit of pathos. It is interesting to observe that it was Keaton’s first film for the MGM Studios and that they tried to impose their rigid style of film making and impose him their writers. This is one of the main reasons that Keaton felt into alcoholism later and lost almost everything. Hopefully, The Cameraman is clearly a Buster Keaton masterpiece and the MGM reform didn’t altered his touch.

Our main character named Buster just like the actor portraying him, meets a woman (Marceline Day) and wants to be with her. She works at the MGM studios and he wants to get a trial to get to be with her and eventually ask her out. However, he is a clumsy man and even if the road is filled with obstacle he is also stubborn and in love. Just like Keaton said himself, his little fellow is an honest man who works and want to get the girl fair and square. Chaplin’s tramp, on the contrary was a bum with a bum attitude and if he had to steal he’d steal. Another aspect of Keaton’s world is how he represents women and his character’s relationship with them. He treats them as his equal and while having respect for them he also insert them in his gags. Chaplin idolized women and would never touch their goddess-like aura.

With The Cameraman, Keaton proves again that he is a funny man that can make multiple physical gags but moreover that he is a marvellous storyteller displaying emotions with the deadpan expression and his long shots. Even if it’s a guy gets the girl classic story, the universality and the quality of this picture is quite something. One of Buster Keaton’s best Silent comedies.