Buster hat nichts zu lachen

I have great respect for the early movie comedians like Keaton, Chaplin, Laurel and others who created a character and developed situations and gags that fit the character's personality. They all had great autonomy within their own smaller companies, but found free reign disappear when they moved to the majors. "Sidewalks" is an MGM comedy with Buster Keaton; it's not a Buster Keaton comedy. It isn't bad, but other, even lesser comedians could have done as well because the "Buster" character doesn't appear here. Although some of the dialog is good and Keaton delivers it well, there's too much; he has an inner city gym for physical gags, but there's too little. The big studios never understood that comedians like Keaton, and later Laurel and Hardy, were their own writers, directors, and gag men. "Sidewalks" has much to recommend it, including some good support, but if you're looking for "Buster", or even "Elmer", look elsewhere.

I just finished watching "Sidewalks of New York" (1931) with Buster Keaton as the somewhat dim-witted but rich slumlord Homer Van Dine Harmon. Homer decides to help the youth of his street by building a youth recreational gym. They don't appreciate it & do a job on it by tearing it apart.

Anita Page plays Margie Kelly the woman whom Homer adores but doesn't think he has a prayer of a chance in gaining her interest. His buddy Poggle (Cliff Edwards...voice of Jiminy Cricket fame) encourages him to try to get to know her & ask her to marry him.

Norman Phillips as Clipper Kelly (Margie's brother) is one of a few of the troubled youth Homer wants to help.

And we have Frank Rowan who plays the nasty Butch the Bad Guy. Butch will do all he can to stop Homer from helping the kids because that group is where he collects his new gang members.

What's going to happen? Will Butch's plan to kill Homer come to fruition? Or will the kids decide Homer is A-OK & come to his rescue? I hope you get to watch this comedy.

Keaton wasn't fond of this movie but I found it to be fun!

Sidewalks of New York (1931)

** (out of 4)

Buster Keaton plays a soft slum owner who falls for a woman (Anita Page) living in his building and plans on impressing her by fixing up the neighborhood and trying to make her bad brother a good kid. Keaton hated this film so much because MGM wouldn't let him have any artistic control and to his shock it became his most popular film, which was a bad thing since that told the studio they could do whatever they wanted with him. This was certainly a turning point in Keaton's career and while it's not as bad as its reputation it's certainly not the classics we're use to seeing the legend appear in. The biggest problem with the film is that it tries to be too many things at once and it doesn't do any of them very well. One moment it wants to be a comedy then it wants to be a drama and then we get more touches of a romantic comedy. The screenplay is all over the map and I found it to be too light for a drama and too mean to work as a comedy. There's a pretty ugly scene towards the end of the film when a wise guy tries to force the kid brother to kill Keaton and this stuff just doesn't work. The abuse shown at the kid who is forced to do some pretty bad things really comes off like abuse and it's hard to watch at times. Even though Keaton's hated doing this film he still manages to turn in a decent performance. Sure, this isn't the golden era of his career but he does have a few good lines and gets to show off some of his physical abilities but not enough. Page also comes off very good even though her role isn't written too well. The two actually have some nice chemistry together and make the film a lot better than it has the right to be.

This is another sad example of what happened to the outstanding Buster Keaton when he became controlled by a supposedly "major" studio, but one that had next to no idea of how to make a Buster Keaton movie.

With all the money and facilities available, this movie is not one-one-hundredth the quality of, for example, "The General." Buster Keaton, though, still showed some of the athleticism that make his good movies so good, and co-star Anita Page showed that she is watchable even in horrible movies.

For Keaton, it's a different kind of script, too, in that Buster is a rich guy and has money to try to do good.

Actually, most of the players do pretty well with what they have to work with, and it's a lot better than, for example, "Free and Easy," but "Sidewalks" is probably a title nobody will want to see more than once ... or maybe, since it is Keaton, more than once a year.

This is added after a viewing on TCM, 7 January 2015: Despite my dismal outlook in the previous review, this time around I liked it a lot more.

Partly I liked it more because I paid more attention to Anita Page, who had, I think, a role quite different for her. And she scored.

In previous roles -- that I have seen -- she was just a very pretty girl with no particular strength. Here she was strong as an over-protective sister "and mother and father."

Cliff Edwards was a particular joy. Usually just a with or at best second fiddle, here he showed he too could be a strong character, and his pairing with the acrobatic Keaton was perfect.

Yes, the big studio did not understand what was funny and did not know how to present Keaton.

But my second viewing, contrary to my earlier comment, made me like this a lot more and I raised my rating to seven. And I think everyone ought to see it. At least twice.

SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1931), a Buster Keaton production directed by Jules White and Zion Meyers, offers comedian Buster Keaton a different type of comedy, that involving social issues. A sort of forerunner to what later developed into "The East Side Kids" comedy-drama series over at Monogram (1940-45) that featured the notable cast of Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall and Gabriel Dell, all of whom originated as "The Dead End Kids" based on their characterizations from the 1935 Broadway drama and 1937 film based adaptation, DEAD END. SIDEWALKS doesn't focus completely on the youths by letting Keaton take second precedence, but on Keaton's character as one who offers his assistance in helping boys of the slums (labeled as "The East Side Kids" from a newspaper clipping) by steering them on the right direction of life, with humorous results. Reportedly labeled, even by Keaton himself, as his "worst movie," SIDEWALKS, according to sources, proved to be his most successful MGM comedy to date, something that even Keaton couldn't understand.

Opening from the skyline view of New York City with an off-screen vocalist singing "East Side, West Side," before camera sets precedence on the lower east side of Manhattan, the pattern is immediately set with the introduction with a group of kids, led by Clipper Kelly (Norman Phillips Jr.), playing baseball on the street. Poggle (Cliff Edwards), personal secretary to millionaire landlord, Homer Van Dine Harmon (Buster Keaton), arrives by limousine into the tenement district to collect rent money from the tenants, resulting to a riot. Returning to Homer's mansion with injuries and minus the money, Harmon decides to do the job himself, meeting with the same results. After Homer gets punched by a tough blonde named Margie (Anita Page) for grabbing hold of her brother, Clipper, trying to get away, he immediately falls in love with her (Homer: "do you believe in love at first site?"). Instead of pressing charges on the urchins in the courtroom, Homer, for the sake of Margie, and with Poggle's assistance, helps the tough youths by providing them the Harmony Hall Boys Club. Butch (Frank Rowan), a neighborhood mobster wanting to steer the boys to his level of crime, intends on having Harmon fail in his purpose by using Clipper in a series of robberies dressed as "The Blonde Bandit."

Definitely a far cry from Keaton's usual flare of creative comedy from the silent era, the is MGM's attempt in trying something more different than originality. Keaton is still the "stoneface," but under MGM regime, continues on being a prat-falling, lovesick bumbler. Unlike his previous MGM assignments, Keaton isn't called "Elmer," nor is he under the direction of Edward Sedgwick. Rather than having one director, SIDEWALKS has two. In some ways, it helps to a degree, succeeding more in areas of inserted comedy than plot. A pity the emphases wasn't on both that would have helped considerably. Regardless of its poor reputation and little known overview in Keaton's filmography, there's still some funny material worth noting: The courtroom scene with Homer on the witness stand with lines and situations repeated to perfection in the Three Stooges comedy short, DISORDER IN THE COURT (Columbia, 1936); a fixed wrestling match between Homer and "One-Round" Mulvaney (Syd Saylor) at the athletic club; Homer's proposal to Margie with the use of a phonograph record; and Homer's preparation of roast duck dinner with Margie and Clipper. The Harmon stage presentation of "The Duke and the Dancer" subtitled "Bad Habits Don't Pay" with Keaton in drag doesn't come off as well as it should, and neither does the final minutes resembling that of an "Our Gang" comedy for Hal Roach Studios come off with any hilarity.

The casting of Anita Page (Keaton's co-star in 1930s FREE AND EASY) as the tough talking slum girl isn't very convincing, though Norman Phillips Jr. as her troublesome teenage brother is as acceptable as Frank Rowan's silent era stereotypical gangster role. One of the major faults in SIDEWALKS is its poor editing, more noticeable where Margie disappears from view after leaving Harmon. Scenes where players get struck lightly on the jaw and immediately lying unconscious on the ground is something more of a head slapping/eye-rolling response from disbelief.

As with the MGM/Keaton comedies, SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK is an odd mix of comedy/drama, yet it somehow manages to become better than the others produced during that time. Rarely shown on broadcast television, this, along with DOUGHBOYS (1930) did turn up as recently as 1978 on a late night showing from WKBS TV, Channel 48, in Philadelphia. Distributed to home video in 1993, SIDEWALKS can be seen occasionally on Turner Classic Movies. (**)