What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[GHT]

Thanks, yes - taking it as a warning, being careful. Stress-triggered, doctor reckons (I was told yesterday I'm now the third academic in our department in the last year to be hospitalised with a heart issue). The variety they think I have is one that's not got underlying lifestyle causes - it's a vessel in the heart spasming rather than thickening artery walls - but lifestyle, job stress particularly, is a definite trigger. My department at the university has introduced a new workload monitoring system this year, and based on crunching last year's data it flagged up that I did somewhere in the region of 136% of my assigned teaching load last year (as well as a full 100% of my admin and scholarship requirements), so I imagine that didn't help! I've already been promised more TAs as needed this year, so that's a plus. I'm not good as rule at saying no at work, so this has given me a bit more of a motivation to do that when needed.

Wishing you well, Edward, your postings here are always poignant. You have that knack of hitting the nail right on the head. And you are a moderator too, where do you find the time?

I strongly recommend that you monitor your workload as much as you do here, but I would also say that you probably wouldn't be comfortable with retirement. From experience, even though it's only a few months, retirement takes some getting used to. My wife Tina, a retired paramedic, had no problem with it, as our bulging wardrobes will attest. She has a time consuming and fulfilling hobby making our clothes.

Recently I may have found my niche, I have become a member of: "The Handwritten Letter Appreciation Society." It looks just the sort of thing to fill my time and give pleasure in the process. In the meantime Edward, you watch your lifestyle and take good care of yourself, otherwise Tina might be asking you some very uncomfortable questions, later.

 

[Fading Fast]

I've always thought that in part it's to do with what folks actually wore back then. A lot of modern productions, even when they get the details perfectly right, the giveaway that these are 'modern' people dressed up is that often they look like they're wearing a costume. Folks back in the day who really 'dressed like that' would of course be so natural in it... Not unlike how, I suppose, when you go to a wedding or other formal event you can usually spot who wear a suit / kilt / w.h.y. regularly and is totally comfortable in it, and who doesn't and isn't.

It's one of the reasons I think Leo Dicaprio is so great in those 40s & 50s period pieces. He does have the sort of physical look to him that makes him seem from that era, but also a lot is in the way he wears those clothes: he looks totally comfortable, like he does it all the time.

I think sometimes you can see the difference in a long-running TV show where the characters all war something atypical of the period in which it is filmed - whether historical costume or uniform or whatever. M*A*S*H or Star Trek, or some such. There's an air of "costume" in the earliest shots, then as time goes on and they inevitably spend so much time in the show wardrobe, they begin to wear it unconsciously - just like normal clothes. There's one of those immersion TV-shows that the BBC id years ago - I think it was The Victorian House? - where in the final episode it shows them returning to 21st Century clothes for the first time in weeks, and how they find the transition back odd. The father of the family talked about it specifically, as I recall.



Thanks, yes - luckily I made a lot of the Sensible Lifestyle Changes a few years ago, which means a lot less impact now (and could quite possibly be why the diagnosis is much better than it might have been otherwise!).

Most importantly, kudos on the lifestyle changes and heartfelt encouragement to continue doing what you need to do to stay healthy.

I agree with your comments on clothes and being "comfortable" in them. I'd add that a combination of the studio system and an army of experienced tailors to draw upon helped a lot back then too. Everybody, the actors, the wardrobe designers and the tailors, understood that era's style (for men that meant the classic suit-collared shirt-tie combination) and how it should fit and how it needed to be tailored.

Like many, I work from home now (and have since '12). Even when I go to in-person business meeting, they no longer call for a suit, collared shirt and tie (post Covid, suit, etc. wearing collapsed), so my old wardrobe hangs unused (I joke that I am a curator of the world's smallest clothing museum, my tiny old business wardrobe).

What I have noticed, relevant to our discussion, is that when I do go to a tailor, as I did a few years back, I was explaining to her how a suit collar should sit on a man's neck (no gap, no bubble, etc.), how much shirt cuff should show past a suit jacket's sleeve, etc. She (and he at a different shop) were sincerely interested as they said they don't work on a lot of men's suits and it seemed to me they simply didn't know the nuances of how a suit should fit a man.

I see it in TV shows and movies how, quite often, a man is wearing, in a period or contemporary show/picture, a suit, etc. and, while it is an expensive one, it is poorly tailored. My guess, nobody in the production, including the wardrobe expert and tailor knew how it should fit.

 

[Fading Fast]

Raffles from 1930 with Ronald Coleman, Kay Francis, Alison Skipworth and David Torrence


It is amazing how many plot twists Hollywood could fit into these early and clunky talkies. Raffles is a good movie with enjoyable characters, but your head will spin a bit as this fast-moving picture takes several surprise turns all in its last twenty minutes.

Ronald Coleman plays a star cricket player who moves comfortably amongst the British upper class. Yet this amatuer athlete funds his expensive social activities by, wait for it, stealing jewelry from his wealthy friends and luxury stores.

Somehow, you sympathize with Coleman (as wrong as it is) because he's only stealing jewelry from high-end stores or people with so many gems they can hardly keep track of them all and, of course, everyone has insurance (also, not an excuse for crime).

Furthering your identification with Coleman, his wastrel friend, played by Bramwell Fletcher, comes to him begging for help as Fletcher has just written a large check he can't cover and will be ruined once his creditor tries to cash it after the weekend.

Today we, one, are supposed to hate the rich and, two, nobody's name gets ruined in society forever for writing a bad check anymore (or today, for not paying our bills electronically). Yet in 1930s England, it meant a lot, making Coleman a good guy for trying to help.

This sets the drama in motion as Coleman had planned to retire from thievery, but puts that idea on hold for one last caper to raise the funds to save his friend. Yes, you have to look past some plot flaws.

Coleman gets himself invited to a weekend house party so that he can steal the diamond necklace of the host, the elderly Lady Melrose played by Alison Skipworth. Most old movies set amongst the English upper class in the 1930s wind up at a country estate party at some point.

Fearing the "Amateur Cracksman," the press' moniker for the jewelry burglar who has eluded Scotland Yard, but who the reader knows is Coleman, Skipworth ironically asks her friend and houseguest Coleman to protect her necklace. It's a "fox watching the hen house" moment.

Scotland Yard, after getting a report that the house will be robbed, also shows up to protect the necklace. With all the attention this one necklace is getting, you'd think there were no other crimes in England at this time except rich people having their jewelry stolen.

One additional wrinkle is that Coleman is in love with Gwen, an upper-class woman played by Kay Francis, sporting a helmet-style hairdo, also attending the house party. Coleman knows he has to give up his life of crime if he wants to marry Francis.

With that long, it takes two thirds of the movie, setup, all heck then breaks out in the last third as a real burglar breaks in, the necklace is treated as a pea in a shell game, a rudimentary burglar alarm is set, unset and set again and Scotland Yard investigates.

Coleman and the Scotland Yard inspector, played by David Torrence, face off in a battle of gentlemanly wits that has a very "British fair play" feel to it. It's such a mannered game of cops and robbers that Torrence and Coleman's exchanges become the best scenes in the movie.

With, maybe, fifteen minutes to go, a lot happens that you want to see fresh, but like so many of these precode movies, the ending has a mixed morality and free spirit that would disappear from movies once the Motion Picture Production Code was enforced after 1934.

Had Ian Fleming created James Bond a few decades earlier, Ronald Coleman shows here he could easily have played the suave and charming superspy who loves action, adventure, cocktails, women and matching wits with smart criminals and law officers alike.

Raffles, despite its dated story and awkward production qualities, is an engaging and fast romp because Coleman was born to play a suave upper-class criminal with a good heart and because, for us today, the time travel to England in the early 1930s is wonderful.


Raffles the movie is loosely based on the popular collection of stories Raffles: The Amatuer Cracksman by E. W. Hornung originally published in 1898. Comments on the book here: #9,031

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Raffles, despite its dated story and awkward production qualities, is an engaging and fast romp because Coleman was born to play a suave upper-class criminal with a good heart and because, for us today, the time travel to England in the early 1930s is wonderful.

The peerage still holds allure but its cachet has less currency due the purse of mind and natural talent that sow seed across wide societal spectrum. Yet undeniable it's there. Make and take of it what will Meganmarkle.
Randy Andy and Sparetire both flat beers gone darts to pub corkboard. Then the X, Exchequer thief of hearts.
Stealer of patrimony. Trinkets to landed estates and thoroughbreds. Rumour has it the pinky signets gold go Coldstream Guards if at all; so there is supposedly more landed title inside the Guards but it's all scuttle.

A book to read and film to see again since Coleman is truly the ''guvaner'' johnny on the spot. Love Raf, he's
the goods and a man with conscience and depth. I think David Niven might have been offered this but declined? And frankly Flynn cannot say. He's all Seahawk and rascal Robin bobin but never saw him Raf
but rather rif-Raf. Opinion please.

 

[Fading Fast]

The peerage still holds allure but its cachet has less currency due the purse of mind and natural talent that sow seed across wide societal spectrum. Yet undeniable it's there. Make and take of it what will Meganmarkle.
Randy Andy and Sparetire both flat beers gone darts to pub corkboard. Then the X, Exchequer thief of hearts.
Stealer of patrimony. Trinkets to landed estates and thoroughbreds. Rumour has it the pinky signets gold go Coldstream Guards if at all; so there is supposedly more landed title inside the Guards but it's all scuttle.

A book to read and film to see again since Coleman is truly the ''guvaner'' johnny on the spot. Love Raf, he's
the goods and a man with conscience and depth. I think David Niven might have been offered this but declined? And frankly Flynn cannot say. He's all Seahawk and rascal Robin bobin but never saw him Raf
but rather rif-Raf. Opinion please.

I have a feeling that what you're thinking of Re Niven is that he played the part in the 1939 remake of "Raffles." To your query, IMO, Flynn didn't have the "polish" or "poshness" that the role called for and that both Coleman and Niven had in spades. Flynn played the jolly bounder well; Niven and Coleman read as good guys to the manner born.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

IMO, Flynn didn't have the "polish" or "poshness" that the role called for and that both Coleman and Niven had in spades. Flynn played the jolly bounder well; Niven and Coleman read as good guys to the manner born.

My Scot grandmother adored Flynn, but even she saw his limitations. Too much potato in the beef stew.

 

[Fading Fast]

The House of the Seven Gables from 1940 with Margaret Lindsay, Vincent Price, George Sanders, Dick Forman, Cecil Kellaway and Nan Grey


A good story is always an auspicious start for a movie. Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The House of the Seven Gables provides that good story. Of course, being Hollywood, it changed parts of Hawthorne's tale, but kept enough of it to end up with an enjoyable movie.

A curse hangs over the House of The Seven Gables from a feud going back to the 17th-century days of the Salem Witch Trials. Now in the 19th century, two brothers fight over the house, leading to one intentionally falsely accusing the other of murdering their father.

Believing that there are valuable documents buried in the walls of the house and that the house will now be his alone, the bad brother swears evidence against the accused brother leading to the accused brother being convicted of murder and sentenced to life.

In a neat twist, all revealed very early in, a distant cousin, a young pretty girl, who was engaged to the brother sent to prison, is left the house. This leaves the bad brother without access to the house he believes contains riches.

Fast forward twenty or so years and the house is in disrepair, the pretty cousin has become a bitter and haggard spinster who, to her credit, never stopped fighting for her fiance's freedom.

Her fiance's sentence is finally commuted, but he returns home a man bent on revenge. The climax, no spoilers coming, has the much-needed final face-off between the two brothers taking place, of course, in the cursed house.

It's a darn-good gothic melodrama with a bit too-much Hollywood schmalz mixed in, but strong acting and a short-run time make it an entertaining picture even if Hawthorne might be a bit miffed at what they did to his story.

In one of her best career roles, the pretty and diction-perfect Margaret Lindsay plays the wonderfully and Biblically named Hepzibah, the young woman who inherits the house. Her transition from happy girl in love to cold and ascetic spinster is poignant.

George Sanders plays his typical character as the urbane nasty schemer willing to do almost anything for riches, while sounding highly educated. Price, alway at home in a gothic setting, is good as the kinder but one-off-the-beat brother.

Dick Forman, in one of his career best roles (that's two in one movie), is excellent as the upbeat but theoretical embodiment of the old curse, who serves mainly as a symbol and change agent. Finally, Nan Gray is pretty to look at in her small cousin-of-Hepzibah role.

Created just for the 1940 movie is a side story about the good guys supporting the abolitionist movement, while greedy Sanders tries to profit on the slave trade. With only modest tweaking, even today's unforgiving morality flyspeckers would probably approve.

While it's a gothic tale with curses and spirits, the movie's atmosphere is far less-haunting and eerie than one expects, especially, of a Hawthorne-penned tale. Instead, most of the movie has a simple, non-threatening "generic old New England" feel.

The House of the Seven Gables is good because its talented cast easily pulls off, altered as it is, Hawthorne's powerful story of Biblical-level brotherly hate, a century-plus-long curse, Romantic Era love and, even, a hint of a treasure hunt.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Morning coffee after a night's work so dim memory seeps thru slowly. Adore Hawthorne but The Scarlet Letter
is my favourite Nathaniel's; though didn't Duvall feature its film?

 

[Trenchfriend]

View attachment 549725
The House of the Seven Gables from 1940 with Margaret Lindsay, Vincent Price, George Sanders, Dick Forman, Cecil Kellaway and Nan Grey


A good story is always an auspicious start for a movie. Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The House of the Seven Gables provides that good story. Of course, being Hollywood, it changed parts of Hawthorne's tale, but kept enough of it to end up with an enjoyable movie.

A curse hangs over the House of The Seven Gables from a feud going back to the 17th-century days of the Salem Witch Trials. Now in the 19th century, two brothers fight over the house, leading to one intentionally falsely accusing the other of murdering their father.

Believing that there are valuable documents buried in the walls of the house and that the house will now be his alone, the bad brother swears evidence against the accused brother leading to the accused brother being convicted of murder and sentenced to life.

In a neat twist, all revealed very early in, a distant cousin, a young pretty girl, who was engaged to the brother sent to prison, is left the house. This leaves the bad brother without access to the house he believes contains riches.

Fast forward twenty or so years and the house is in disrepair, the pretty cousin has become a bitter and haggard spinster who, to her credit, never stopped fighting for her fiance's freedom.

Her fiance's sentence is finally commuted, but he returns home a man bent on revenge. The climax, no spoilers coming, has the much-needed final face-off between the two brothers taking place, of course, in the cursed house.

It's a darn-good gothic melodrama with a bit too-much Hollywood schmalz mixed in, but strong acting and a short-run time make it an entertaining picture even if Hawthorne might be a bit miffed at what they did to his story.

In one of her best career roles, the pretty and diction-perfect Margaret Lindsay plays the wonderfully and Biblically named Hepzibah, the young woman who inherits the house. Her transition from happy girl in love to cold and ascetic spinster is poignant.

George Sanders plays his typical character as the urbane nasty schemer willing to do almost anything for riches, while sounding highly educated. Price, alway at home in a gothic setting, is good as the kinder but one-off-the-beat brother.

Dick Forman, in one of his career best roles (that's two in one movie), is excellent as the upbeat but theoretical embodiment of the old curse, who serves mainly as a symbol and change agent. Finally, Nan Gray is pretty to look at in her small cousin-of-Hepzibah role.

Created just for the 1940 movie is a side story about the good guys supporting the abolitionist movement, while greedy Sanders tries to profit on the slave trade. With only modest tweaking, even today's unforgiving morality flyspeckers would probably approve.

While it's a gothic tale with curses and spirits, the movie's atmosphere is far less-haunting and eerie than one expects, especially, of a Hawthorne-penned tale. Instead, most of the movie has a simple, non-threatening "generic old New England" feel.

The House of the Seven Gables is good because its talented cast easily pulls off, altered as it is, Hawthorne's powerful story of Biblical-level brotherly hate, a century-plus-long curse, Romantic Era love and, even, a hint of a treasure hunt.

View attachment 549727

Is this Chimney or porn??

 

[Edward]

Wishing you well, Edward, your postings here are always poignant. You have that knack of hitting the nail right on the head. And you are a moderator too, where do you find the time?

I strongly recommend that you monitor your workload as much as you do here, but I would also say that you probably wouldn't be comfortable with retirement. From experience, even though it's only a few months, retirement takes some getting used to. My wife Tina, a retired paramedic, had no problem with it, as our bulging wardrobes will attest. She has a time consuming and fulfilling hobby making our clothes.

Recently I may have found my niche, I have become a member of: "The Handwritten Letter Appreciation Society." It looks just the sort of thing to fill my time and give pleasure in the process. In the meantime Edward, you watch your lifestyle and take good care of yourself, otherwise Tina might be asking you some very uncomfortable questions, later.

Thanks, yes - the doctor reckons it's definitely stress induced, so in future I'm going to have to make sure I don't go beyond the industry standard of doing fifty of the thirty-five hours a week the university underpays me for. I've always been a bit rubbish at saying 'no', but this has definitely given me a bit of an added motivation to stand up for that and keep an eye on my workload. And to be fair, at departmental level we now have management who are very supportive on that from - the new workload planner was a great, and really flagged up how much more I do do than contract.

 

[Fading Fast]

Morning coffee after a night's work so dim memory seeps thru slowly. Adore Hawthorne but The Scarlet Letter
is my favourite Nathaniel's; though didn't Duvall feature its film?

Yes, you are correct about Duval. That was in the 1995 version, which I saw on cable back in the '90s and it wasn't good. It was during Demi Moore's "I'm going to make every movie I do a feminist hero movie" phase even if I have to change Hawthorne to do it.

Is this Chimney or porn??

I apologize, I don't understand your question. I think you might be just be making a joke that I'm not getting, but I didn't want to be rude and just ignore it.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I watched an outstanding new documentary on PBS about German-Jewish photographer Fred Stein, Out of Exile: The Photography of Fred Stein.

As a lifelong photographer, I'm surprised that I hadn't heard of him before. His 30s/40s photos of Paris and New York - shot with Leicas and Rolleiflexes - are wonderful. And he wasn't entirely unknown to the photographic community in his time like, say, Vivian Maier. E.g., he was a buddy of famous war photographer Robert Capa.

Anyway, it's a worthwhile documentary. And check out his great photos:

Fred Stein

Fred Stein was a master of the art of street photography. His pioneering work with the hand-held camera captured some of the earliest images of people in the midst of everyday life, revealing striking psychological and cultural insights. This same immediacy infuses his penetrating portraits of the g

www.fredstein.com

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Always on proverbial back burner, Dashiell Hammett.
So, I deliberately stopped all else and sat a splendid, though noticeably second shelf documentary paperback, appropriately signature titled DASHIELL HAMMETT.

Since man and books are only known by me through film for nodding acquaintance at best, this flick really
served purpose for proper introduction of the man and his moment. A World War I-and Second World War-veteran but not a discerned ''Lost Generation'' member, his bona fides came later. Hammett seems to have
returned stateside with tubercular infected lungs and armed more with curious detachment rather than literary direction, gradually latching onto the hard boiled crime genre in which he excelled. His personals were
disheveled nonsense, his marriage little more than a cruel joke, passably paternal, and tubercular New York
exile, Hammett enjoyed a brief productive period before decline set his life ending chapters at age sixty-six.
A man to explore further.

 

[Fading Fast]

Doughboys from 1930 with Buster Keaton, Sally Eilers and Edward Brophy


Buster Keaton doing physical comedy in a farcical story where his deadpan response sits at the core of the humor is what Buster Keaton does best, as seen in Doughboys, an okay very early talkie from 1930.

Keaton, in this movie, takes his comedy formula to WWI. But first, he, playing a layabout heir of a wealthy industrialist, meets a woman, played by Sally Eilers, who rejects him because of his rich idleness. Then, and by complete mistake, Keaton enlist in the Army.

Even though it's a talkie, the style echoes Keaton's famous silent pictures as much of the humor is physical comedy that has Keaton walking into doors, falling into holes, rolling in the mud and accidentally sleeping in the wrong bed.

All these pratfalls befalling Keaton prompt his famous deadpan response, which is the driver of the humor as no matter what crazy thing happens to Keaton, he just blithely takes it as if being offered a cup of coffee.

Once he's in the army, the story has two threads. In one, the "romance" continues as Eilers, who signed up for a women's auxiliary unit that entertains the troops, goes to France when Keaton gets shipped over.

The other storyline is the much-used fish-out-of-water new-recruit tale with Keaton irritating his by-the-book bullying drill sergeant, played by noted character actor Edward Brophy.

The rest of the movie is, one part, Keaton trying to charm Eilers, which consists mainly of Keaton accidentally angering Eilers on the surface, while also, reaching her at a deeper level. This part is driven, mainly, by pratfalls and misunderstanding, Keaton's stock in trade.

The new-recruit storyline, the second part, plays out with many pratfalls and misunderstandings, too, as Keaton bumbles his way through basic training, losing his bayonet, confusing orders, accidentally knocking Brophy down into a mud puddle, etc.

The climax, no spoilers coming, has Keaton at the front where he gets to show the absurdity of war, which is fair enough because there is plenty of absurdity to war, but if the good guys don't fight, the dictators aren't going to lay down their arms in sympathy.

Keaton, while making the absurdity point, accidentally wanders into a German trench, where he meets his former chauffeur. They forget they are "enemies" and have a pleasant exchange as they casually put their guns aside. It's funny, albeit obvious.

Of course, and this is no spoiler as Keaton fans know this is going to happen all along, the misunderstandings with Eilers get straightened out, Keaton gets back to "normal" life and, then, one final scene has all the craziness return in a Seinfeld like "twist" ending.

Doughboys, an early talkie, suffers from some really poor transitions where a scene will be abruptly cut off only to jarringly drop you into another scene. It feels as if the movie was poorly sliced together. (In fairness, that might just have been the copy I saw.)

The picture is helped, though, by Brophy as he was born to play a drill sergeant bent out of shape by a Keaton-like recruit (think Nabors and Sutton in Gomer Pyle: USMC). It's also helped by Eilers, a quietly charming Mary Astor doppelgänger carrying a few extra pounds.

It's nice to see, in this precode, that the "ethnicity" of the recruits wasn't scrubbed out by the censors. One recruit in particular, a Jewish man, spits out pithy comments in heavily accented English that echoes the sounds of the lower east side of NYC from that era.

Doughboys works if you like Keaton's humor of pratfalls and crazy misunderstandings delivered with a blithe deadpan, all wrapped inside a farcical story. It maybe shows the absurdity of life or it is maybe just meant to amuse and entertain.


N.B. Had Keaton been in his prime in the 1960s, his style of humor would have fit that era's thirty-minute TV sitcom humor perfectly. In the 1970s, he would have probably hosted his own variety show à la Carol Burnett.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Nicely put. Keaton's talkies are definitely a mixed bag, but they also aren't as terrible as some of his biographers have made them out to be. Even the worst of the bunch, made as Buster slipped into an alcoholic haze, still have individual moments that are fully Keaton.

He actually did do quite a bit of television thru the fifties and early sixties, and was a particular favorite guest on Garry Moore's various shows -- Moore had been a dedicated fan of Keaton's comedy since childhood, and even did a very credible Keaton impersonation as part of his own act. Moore would give him plenty of room to do his silent style of comedy, and even in his sixties and seventies Buster could still take a fall like someone half his age. And it was also on Moore's show that Carol Burnett got her start, so there's definitely a point of intersection there.

 

[Fading Fast]

Nicely put. Keaton's talkies are definitely a mixed bag, but they also aren't as terrible as some of his biographers have made them out to be. Even the worst of the bunch, made as Buster slipped into an alcoholic haze, still have individual moments that are fully Keaton.

He actually did do quite a bit of television thru the fifties and early sixties, and was a particular favorite guest on Garry Moore's various shows -- Moore had been a dedicated fan of Keaton's comedy since childhood, and even did a very credible Keaton impersonation as part of his own act. Moore would give him plenty of room to do his silent style of comedy, and even in his sixties and seventies Buster could still take a fall like someone half his age. And it was also on Moore's show that Carol Burnett got her start, so there's definitely a point of intersection there.

That is great color. As I was watching this movie, I kept thinking how well Keaton could have fit into 1960s/1970s TV. I didn't love the movie, but enjoyed Keaton's, Eilers' and Brophy's performances.

In the draft I wrote and then cut and pasted into here, I had a postscript that said "I bet LizzieMaine would enjoy this one," but I accidentally cut it off when bringing it over and, then, owing to FL's tech issues, after having to struggle to get the to the right place to post and waiting forever for the picture to load, I didn't notice that I had cut it off.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Coincidentally, today is Buster Keaton's birthday (10-4-1895), but atypically, TCM isn't showing any of his films.

Personally, I find most of his 1930s films pretty unwatchable, but there's no question that they have their moments. He was always a comic genius, and it showed - even amidst low budgets, questionable costars, and weak stories.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Good old Buster, member in good standing of the Projectionist's Union.

It occurs to me that he and Garry Moore had one more thing in common -- they both had been partnered at one time with Jimmy Durante. It worked for Moore far, far better than it ever did for Keaton.

 

[Fading Fast]

Good old Buster, member in good standing of the Projectionist's Union.

It occurs to me that he and Garry Moore had one more thing in common -- they both had been partnered at one time with Jimmy Durante. It worked for Moore far, far better than it ever did for Keaton.

It's funny, when I wrote up the movie "The Passionate Plumber" (comments here: #29,948 ) that Keaton and Durante did together, I noted how they were both funny on their own, but didn't really work as a team.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A man who never stops talking paired with a man who carries his own silence within him. What could go wrong?