The Movie Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained) (2016)

IN CONTEXT

GENRE

Comedy

DIRECTOR

Charles Reisner

WRITER

Carl Harbaugh

STARS

Buster Keaton, Tom McGuire, Ernest Torrence, Marion Byron

BEFORE

1924 Keaton fractures his neck while shooting the pratfalls for Sherlock, Jr.

1926 Keaton’s The General, now considered a classic, flops at the box office.

AFTER

1928 Steamboat Bill, Jr. is the inspiration for Walt Disney’s Steamboat Willie, the first Mickey Mouse animation.

1929 Keaton makes his final silent movie, Spite Marriage, about a celebrity wife who divorces her humble husband.

Buster Keaton was a master of deadpan slapstick. He was born into a vaudeville family and grew up familiar with the demands of physical comedy, which he transferred from stage to screen. Although he didn’t always take a credit as director, he was invariably the mastermind behind the laughs. Today, what impresses most about his movies is their comic precision, and the sophisticated way in which he misleads his audiences. Steamboat Bill, Jr. is typical of the way in which Keaton plays with expectations.

Straight to the jokes

The movie sets course in almost record time—the grizzled captain of a dilapidated paddle steamer faces competition from a stylish new riverboat on the same day that his long-lost son (Keaton) reappears—and goes straight to the jokes. Keaton uses a slew of visual puns and sight gags even before his character has arrived. When he finally does appear, Keaton starts a symphony of silliness, playing against type as a fey bohemian, complete with Oxford bags, a tiny ukulele, and a beret, before the movie moves up a notch with a storm. After he has been swept by high winds through a town on a hospital bed, Keaton stands immobile as an entire storefront crashes over his head, perfectly framing him in its top window. The scene—highly dangerous to perform—captures Keaton’s philosophy in a nutshell: “Stuntmen don’t get laughs.”

Keaton performed his own stunts, many of which, like this building falling on him in Steamboat Bill, Jr., relied on precise timing and positioning to avoid serious injury.

What else to watch: Our Hospitality (1923) ✵ Sherlock, Jr. (1924) ✵ The Navigator (1924) ✵ The General (1926) ✵ The Cameraman (1928)