The Boat
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Keaton has built a boat in his garage, and takes his family out for a sail. Destroys the house getting the boat out, destroys the car getting the boat in the water, finally destroys the boat, leaving the four of them floating in a bathtub for a life raft, when his son pulls the drain plug. The boat itself is as complicated as The Electric House, with collapsing masts (for going under bridges) and makeshift repairs. Nice scene where the whole boat is rotating in a storm (actually rotating, not just a camera trick) while Keaton tries to stay right-side-up. Pretty sure I like this one more than Electric House… in fact, most of these are at least as good as that one. Don’t know why I obsessed on it for so long.

The Love Nest
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I recognized Big Joe Roberts from Cops, the giant clear-eyed fat man. Turns out he plays the antagonist in almost every one of Keaton’s silent shorts. He died of a stroke shortly after Our Hospitality in October 1923. Big Joe plays the cruel, murderous captain of a whaling boat Love Nest that picks up Keaton who is stranded at sea. At the end, Keaton can’t launch the lifeboat alone, so he sinks the whole ship to float the small craft. Entire Love Nest sequence turns out to have been a figment of his food-and-water-deprived imagination… thinking himself stranded at sea for weeks, his boat is still tied to the dock.

The Goat
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As in “scape”goat, turns out… there’s no goat here. Dead Shot Dan arranges to have the police photographer get a shot of bread-line refugee Keaton through a window, then makes his escape. Keaton sees the poster, thinks it’s for real and that he killed a guy he pushed down in another town, chased around by sheriff Big Joe Roberts, ending up accidentally in Big Joe’s own apartment. The escape from the apartment has one of my favorite series of gags, a chase through the building’s single elevator.

My Wife’s Relations
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Running from cops, Keaton accidentally (preacher speaks Polish I think) gets married to a woman who’s trying to have him arrested. Comes home to her family of large, rough, intimidating men. Tries to fit in at first, then plots to escape, riding the train to Reno at the end.

The Scarecrow
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Keaton is friends with Big Joe in this one. They live in a one-room house that inventively conceals a bath, bed, stove and kitchen table with ropes and hinges. Both men are competing for a woman (same girl played the wife in The Boat, her farmer father is played by Joe Keaton), leading to a chase scene where Keaton disguises himself as a scarecrow. Best part is Keaton in a dangerously high chase with a dog that can climb ladders (up and down!) which ends up going through the rigged house.

The Paleface
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Keaton wanders into an Indian reservation right after they swear to kill white men in response to their land being stolen by oil barons… finds time mid-chase to make an asbestos suit, so after he fails to burn at the stake, he’s made an honorary member of the tribe. Now he and chief Big Joe team up against the scheming white men. Virginia Fox, hot girl from The Goat, Cops and others, plays the chief’s daughter, Keaton’s prize for saving the reservation at the end. She never gets much to do except to look pretty in a few close-ups.

These are all totally worthwhile shorts… think I’d choose Scarecrow and Goat to show off to others, if I ever had people over for a shorts-fest like I keep threatening to do.

Big Joe Roberts:
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Buster is a nonathletic college kid, stressing academic achievement over sport. But when his girl falls for an athlete, Buster’s gotta prove his versatility on the field to win her back!

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Or something along those lines. At the end, the jock is threatening to ruin her just by staying in her dorm room and not leaving. If it’s known that she was alone with him for more than a few minutes, her virginity will be in question, and she’ll have to leave college in shame. Fortunately, Buster pole-vaults through the window and pelts him with college memorabilia. A weird little movie, pretty funny but didn’t kill.

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Also watched The Electric House (1922), a short from back when suicide was funny:
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Buster Keaton’s first film for MGM, and “first film BK made with a prepared script”. Silent. Unbelievably highly rated considering how lame it seemed to me.

Keaton costars with Marceline Day (60+ movies in a decade, stopped acting in ’33, lived till 2000). This is only a year after Sherlock Jr., The General and College, and just a few years before his career had completely devolved into junk like What, No Beer?. The beginning of the end for Buster!

So he “acts” in this one… he has facial reactions, falls in love, looks angry and sad and everything. No more blank faced humor. Scene in a pool changing room that was so long and obvious I started looking at the records on the wall instead of the movie. All sorts of trouble.

Keaton is a “tintype” photographer, charging for portraits on the street, when he meets M. Day. He follows her to the newsreel office where she works, trades in the tintype for an expensive (for him) ol’ beat-up movie camera. Tries to be johnny on the spot with the news, but can’t compete with the big fellas. So Day gives Buster a tip on the Chinatown riots, which Buster covers himself in the only great scene… putting himself in mortal danger with his accidentally acquired new pet monkey sometimes running the camera, making it all the funnier when the news fellas later see the footage and declare it the best camera work they’d ever seen. But first Buster has to be sadly disgraced and lose his girl to a showoffy strongman then he has to disgrace the strongman via a daring speedboat rescue, regaining the girl and securing a job at the news place. And everyone is happy except for the strongman (no girl, probably no job) and me (only two funny scenes, Buster losing his distinctive personality with no apparent gains). Not a waste of time or anything, don’t recommend against it, just sorta personally disappointing.

Sign on the door: “Ladie’s dressing rooms”

Limelight 1

Five years after Monsieur Verdoux, twelve after The Great Dictator, and his third-to-last movie. This would be an interesting one to read more about. Charlie plays a clown (Calvero), used to be the most famous in the country but now all washed up. Meets a ballerina on the verge of success but with suicidal tendencies. She tells of a songwriter she once fell for, but insists she’s now fallen for Calvero, wants to marry him. He says that’s ridiculous, that he’s a failing old man and she’s a lovely young woman. Interesting philosophy, since Chaplin (63) wrote + directed and the lead actress (21) was much closer in age to Chaplin’s real wife (26). Anyway, they help each other out, Calvero fades away and lets the girl do her own thing without him. Doesn’t work – she tracks him down, gets him huge sold-out final gig, after which he conveniently dies leaving her to her dark handsome composer and a future as a world-famous ballerina

Limelight 2

Not a comedy, drama all the way, with a few funny bits. Sweet story, good looking movie, totally enjoyed it. I guess the most “personal” movie I’ve seen of his… seems more so than the Great Dictator.

At Calvero’s final gig, he’s doing some of the same jokes he does at the beginning of the movie that get walkouts and disinterest. But at the big sold-out show, audiences are hooting their appreciation, thunderous applause, love love loving it. The jokes haven’t gotten better, but the reception has. Old star suddenly propped up by current new stars and given a benefit gig with hugely overappreciative audience, seemed to me like the crowd is applauding themselves for supporting the old man, the kind of award-show self-important applause that has more to do with being important enough to attend the Big Event and cultured enough to recognize the Famous Talent than it does the actual performance. Don’t know if that’s what Chaplin intended, but anyway, the applause made Calvero feel a whole lot better.

Buster Keaton was in it!

Limelight 3