I don't know what force made Buster Keaton do those awful Educational Pictures "comedy" short features but he sure feels lost in mostly all of them. Probably the transition to talkies played its part on him too, like on many others of his era as well, and he had to sign up for everything that was thrown his way to stay busy and relevant but, after watching seven of those pictures, they all feel dated to me, bland, unfunny and most certainly uncreative.
The E-flat man is one of the better ones of them, at least it doesn't seem all that ridiculous from the get-go as the vast majority of all of Buster talkies up to that point in his career. But just like pretty much all it lacks cohesive storyline, continuity, jokes (what's simply crucial in a Buster Keaton movie) and from a technical side - a good sound editing as well.
In this one Elmer (Buster Keaton's frequent Educational character) elopes with his girl in the middle of the night but mistakenly takes the police vehicle instead of his own, stolen a little earlier, and while on the run they encounter some giggly situations.
Buster here is that same old chap we fell in love with a while back but he's bored to death and it's visible in every scene - that he's only in it to get a quick buck and move on to the next project, that he is suffering with finding out whether he belongs in this new world of talking pictures or not. Time will prove that it's never going to be the former, and it makes me sad to see talents go to waste and do something they aren't worthy of but it's also a part of their journey, the one that helped them become better and stronger (and hopefully do some more decent pictures), so I'll keep digging for bronze (I can only dream of gold under these circumstances).
