Buster Keaton

[funneman]

I just spent a most enjoyable evening with my ten year old daughter.

We sat together and watched "Steamboat Bill, Jr." last night on TCM.

The two of us have never laughed so hard. What an amazing talent. Keaton said so much, without ever saying a word.

Here's a great clip:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=u0fin2APsP4

It's a little long but fast forward to 05:05 check out the hat store scene. I'm still laughing.

 

[BeBopBaby]

I had the pleasure of seeing Steamboat Bill Jr. on the big screen with The Asylum Street Spankers doing a live "hot jazz" musical accompanyment. It was wonderful!

My favorite part of the hat shop scene is when the store owner puts the iconic hat that Buster always wore on Buster's head and he grimaces and rips it off. It's such a funny little inside joke.

Just some trivia for you about the movie:

Did you know that during the hurricane sequence when the front of the building falls on him and he is saved because the open window lands where he is standing, that he only had a 2 inch clearance between his body and the 2 ton set piece. He could have very easily been squashed. Keaton was either crazy or he had nerves of steel!

(The trivia below is pulled from IMDB - I included it because I thought it was an interesting tidbit.)
During the hurricane sequence, there is a scene that pays homage to Buster Keaton's childhood on the vaudeville stage. One brief moment has a table move in the wind, apparently animating the dummy and turning its head to face Keaton. Keaton is startled and runs. This is based on a real experience from when he was a kid and became fascinated with a dummy named Red Top, who belonged to ventriloquist Trovollo. The young Keaton had a "conversation" with the dummy and conspired to kidnap his new friend one night when the theater was empty. Trovollo, anticipating Keaton, slipped to his props offstage and when Keaton approached, brought Red Top to life, scaring Keaton out of the theater.

 

[funneman]

My favorite part of the hat shop scene is when the store owner puts the iconic hat that Buster always wore on Buster's head and he grimaces and rips it off. It's such a funny little inside joke.

Funny you should mention that. I was explaing the same thing to my daughter.

Also the look he gives his Father when the store owner puts the derby on his head is so out of character it looks like a little dig at Charlie Chaplin.

 

[dhermann1]

Keaton

I was hoping some other Loungers caught "Steamboat Bill Jr" last night. Yes, I dug the hat scene. I was impressed by how elaborate the scenes with the moving steamboats were. Big machines moving through the water. There must have been danger galore for every cast member. Appalling to think it was a flop at the box office. The public were already looking for the next big thing. I think it's great Keaton had that great little cameo in "Mad Mad Mad Mad World". I hope it provided an opportunity for another generation to say "Who is that guy?"

 

[funneman]

Danger

I found this stunt reel on YouTube:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=3Rn_iF5EhHw

Check out the stunt with Keaton on the front of the train, it starts at 05:07, one slip and he would have been a dead man.

What an amazing sense of timing!

 

[Big Man]

I watched "Steamboat Bill, Jr." and "The General" last night on TCM. It's interesting to see just how many of us FL folks were doing the same thing at the same time.

 

[Hondo]

College

In honor of college football, I caught "College" with Buster Keaton.
Some of the funnies gags you ever saw, think nerds are bad, Keaton was hilarious at Shot put, track, javelin.
I’ve seen my share of athletes so its in "Spirit" as his girl said, lol
GO CAL Football, Go Bears!!!

 

[BeBopBaby]

I watched "Steamboat Bill, Jr." and "The General" last night on TCM. It's interesting to see just how many of us FL folks were doing the same thing at the same time.

I tivo'd them all. Even though I've seen almost all of the movies played multiple times, I still plan on watching them all again. I know what I'll be doing on Labor Day!

 

[LizzieMaine]

The tragic thing about the house-dropping scene in "Steamboat Bill" is that it was shot on the very afternoon that Keaton was informed by his financial backer/producer Joseph Schenck that the plug was being pulled on his independent studio. Given the shock of that revelation, many of those there that day were convinced that Keaton honestly didn't care if the house hit him or not.

 

[Paratrooper]

I alway thought the Keaton was the better comic than Chaplin but thats me [huh]
It was that nerves of steel and split second timing that did it for me, and plus the deadpan look that he kept the whole time..priceless.

 

[Doctor Strange]

It does my heart good to see folks discovering and enjoying Keaton's genius. I've been a mega-fan for a long time - I started buying Blackhawk Films Super 8 prints of Keaton's shorts back in about 1973. In the summer of 1975, my main silent-comedy-fan buddy and I went every week to see the first reasonably complete retrospective of Keaton's work (usually two features and two or three shorts) at NYC's old Elgin revival theater (now the Joyce Dance Theatre), and it was an astounding revelation.

Keaton's films hold up so well because he was something of an anti-sentimental modernist, well ahead of his time in his techniques and concepts. He's not into the cloying Victorian sentimentality and flat-footed staging with too many long shots that makes Chaplin's films seem even older than they are. He's not wedded to the conventional, mainstream American POV of the 20s like Harold Lloyd is. His themes - man vs. machine, man vs. nature, man vs. woman - are timeless. His technique is transparent: you can almost believe that sound and color were available to him, but he chose to work silently (using many less dialog and explanatory intertitles than the others) in b/w because it was simply the RIGHT way to express himself.

(Oh, and I adore Chaplin and Lloyd too, not to mention Laurel & Hardy, Charley Chase, etc. But Keaton stands above them all in some ways.)

The fascinating thing about Keaton's modernism is that, far from being an intellectual, he was a complete naif, having only spent one day in school in his life, growing up in the family vaudeville act. He always resisted any serious interpretation of his work, insisting he was only trying to make people laugh the best way he know how. But his films are brilliantly obervant and subversive, and they speak for themselves... eloquently.

Keaton's life and work is utterly fascinating: I think the best biography of Keaton is the one by Rudi Blesh. I've read them all, but it's the one that I keep coming back to...

Damfino!