Mubi Monday: Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)

If you haven't yet checked out the films of Buster Keaton then you really should rectify that as soon as possible. He remains a giant figure in the field of cinema, technically innovative, insanely delighted to throw himself across various scenes of peril, and still very funny. He was also massively influential, of course (just watch any Jackie Chan film for some of the most obvious homages). A lot of people will tell you that Steamboat Bill, Jr. is one of his films that you should prioritise. At the risk of having tinned tomatoes thrown at me, I would not be one of those people.

Don't get me wrong, Steamboat Bill, Jr. is a very good comedy. It's just not up there with some of his marvellous shorts, and it's also a step behind The General and Sherlock Jr. (still his best film, as far as I'm concerned).

The story is as slight as you'd expect. A man is waiting for his son to return from college, assuming he has grown from boy to man and will help him with the work of operating his paddle steamer. The son arrives, in the shape of Buster Keaton, and it's immediately apparent that he's not a natural fit for the role. But he will try. He will also fall in love with the daughter of a rival businessman, he will try to break his father out of jail (due to him assaulting the aforementioned rival), and he will wander around in the midst of a destructive cyclone.

Directed by Charles Reisner, Steamboat Bill, Jr. is arguably most famous for two things. First of all, this is the film in which the house falls on Keaton, his life saved by the placing of a window. Second, it was the last movie that Keaton made with this blend of team players and creative control, just before he moved to MGM.

Like so many of these movies, you can divide this into three main acts. Act one is the arrival of Keaton and his attempts to fit in with the role that his father wants him to take on. Act two shows the state of the paddle steamer and has his father jailed, leading to an attempt by Keaton to break him out. And act three is the cyclone. All three of these acts have wonderful moments, and some good laughs, scattered throughout, but none of them have quite enough in the set-pieces to make them as good as they could be. There's no consistency to them, unlike the extended sequences in other Keaton movies.

Keaton is as brilliant as ever in the main role, I still can't think of anyone in cinema to this day who maintains the deadpan expression better than "Old Stone Face". Ernest Torrence is amusingly exasperated as his father, Tom McGuire is the villain of the piece, and Marion Byron is a pretty love interest.

The script may be credited to Carl Harbaugh but it would seem that Keaton actually put the thing together. Maybe that is why this doesn't feel quite as great as some of his other works. I know that Keaton seemed to have his hand in every department, and it was surely his inventiveness and creativity that gave us so many iconic moments, but this film feels like it could have benefited from some more gag writers coming up with more little moments to connect up in between the bigger highlights.

But what do I know? Who am I to criticise the work of a fully-fledged comedic genius like Keaton? Watch the film for yourself, and then you can enjoy it, AND enjoy telling me how wrong I am.

7/10

I recommend this set, if it's available anywhere.
Americans can get this beauty.

April Fools: The General (1926)

It would only be a fool, surely, who would come along and call The General anything less than a stone cold classic. Well, I AM that fool. Before anyone starts making voodoo dolls in my likeness, however, do bear in mind that I really enjoyed The General. In fact, there were a lot of sequences that I loved. Unfortunately, the best stuff - on the train - is bookended by weaker material that makes this slim movie feel as if it's been unnecessarily padded out.

Based on a true story, detailed in a couple of books by William Pettinger, which were subsequently adapted into a screenplay by a couple of people before being written and directed by Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman, the basic story concerns Johnnie Gray (Keaton). Johnnie is in love with Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack), but his declaration of love comes just as war begins. Annabelle cannot love a man who won't fight for his county, so Johnnie duly heads off to enlist. Unfortunately, he's refused because of his vital role as a train engineer. One year later, without the love of his life, Johnnie is fired up into action when Union spies steal his locomotive, planning to use it as a way to ensure their victory. It's up to Johnnie to defeat numerous enemies, and perhaps even win the war.

As mentioned above, this movie has about 10-15 minutes at either end that just don't feel funny or energetic enough, BUT that may be down to the fact that the middle section (all of the action with Keaton on a train as he chases after his stolen locomotive) is just so damn good. There are so many moments of physical comedy gold that to pick out just one is nigh on impossible, but I'll personally nominate the scene in which Keaton tries to line up a spectacular cannon shot as one particular highlight.

Keaton is, of course, the star of the show, but it's also worth remembering just how much spectacle this movie puts on the screen. With the large cast of extras, the amount of destruction and those trains being onscreen for most of the runtime, this is a BIG film. In fact, one shot in the movie (that I won't spoil) remains the most expensive ever filmed in the silent movie era.

A great comedy, and a great tribute to the bravery of Pettinger, The General remains well worth a watch, and has maintained its reputation over the years with good reason.

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Buster-Keaton-Chronicles-Repackaged/dp/B001IRFWFW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1391373294&sr=8-3&keywords=buster+keaton

Sherlock Jr. (1924)

Buster Keaton was a great film-maker, as pretty much everyone acknowledges, and Sherlock Jr. is another one of his great films. According to everyone who had seen it before I did. Yet, ten minutes into Sherlock Jr. I started to wonder why I wasn't loving it. It was good, but not great. Thankfully, within moments I was changing my mind. Those initial ten minutes were required to establish the characters and plot. After that, it was nothing but inventive brilliance for the remaining half hour.

The plot involves Keaton as a projectionist who is also studying how to be a detective. He's in love with a girl (Kathryn McGuire), but the girl has also caught the attention of a slick, villainous sort (Ward Crane). When a watch is stolen from the girl's father (Joe Keaton) and the ticket for its sale found on our hero, who has popped round to deliver chocolates and a proposal, he is told to leave and never return. He heads back to his job, and once the film begins he quickly dozes off. Which is when he becomes Sherlock Jr. and begins an adventure that starts with him entering the cinema screen and ends with a fantastic chase sequence.

Simple, yet brilliant. That's what Sherlock Jr. is. The story, created by Jean Havez, Joe Mitchell and Clyde Bruckman, is an excuse for numerous flights of fancy, but they're so perfectly executed that everything happening onscreen remains almost as fresh and impressive as it did almost 90 years ago.

Mixing the stunts and pratfalls that Keaton is so famous for with the technical expertise and bag of cinematic tricks . . . . . . . . . . that Keaton is so famous for, this is a delight for fans of comedy and also a delight for fans of film itself. So fans of comedy films will be in their element.

Highlights include that perfectly edited sequence in which Keaton is first getting used to life in the projected movie, and an absolutely wonderful game of pool that features one rigged ball ready to explode, but it's all a sheer delight once that first section sets everything up and segues into the fantasy that makes up most of the movie.

9/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Buster-Keaton-Chronicles-Repackaged/dp/B001IRFWFW/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1373053180&sr=8-5&keywords=buster+keaton