Grand Slam Opera

After spending years in the MGM factory and nearly losing his mind, Keaton pulled himself together in 1935. At that time he worked for Educational, a low budget company that had seen much better days. The 16 films Keaton did for Educational between 1934-37 are nevertheless viewed today which respect. Despite meager budgets and often not very original scripts they still show that here Keaton was given some creative control (compare to the most films he later did for Columbia) and was still able to create great gags. But only in a few films he could work with an own script. GRAND SLAM OPERA was one of the few. It is a Keaton Film from start to finish, with a clever story, fast pace and some good support by Harold Goodwin and especially John Ince (good supporting actors are quite rare in low budget comedies). The "Hotel room dancing" and the juggle performance in front of a micro are classic scenes. Not surprisingly GRAND SLAM OPERA is now regarded as (almost) equal to the quality of his silent films. Others, like PEST FROM THE WEST were very funny, but GRAND SLAM OPERA provided the special "Keaton-Touch" that was nearly destroyed by MGM.

Down on his luck, out of favour, no longer the huge star he used to be, and broke, Buster Keaton signed to do a series of shorts with Educational pictures. Most are merely amusing. But Grand Slam Opera is a flash of comedic brilliance that reminded us just who we were watching: one of the greatest movie comedians and directors who ever lived.

Keaton pulls off the funniest parody of Fred Astaire ever in a sequence where he mimics the famous scene from Top Hat, dancing in his dingy room, up on the furniture and down again, disturbing the lady trying to sleep below. He pokes fun at Sinatra's Hoboken Four, and Major Bowes' Hour. Deadpan, he dances through an international medley of music, improvising the appropriate dance as the music changes. He lampoons pretentious singers, annoying band leaders, and introduces a pick-up line that you will never forget. He sings, he dances, and he falls in ways that only he can. Best of all, he gets the girl. If you love Keaton, you'll love this short.

This 1936 short from Educational Pictures is often held up as an example that Buster Keaton, now being given a chance to write his own material again, still had it in the sound era. Well it should be, not just because just about every joke and sequence lands dead-on and hilariously, but because the whole two-reeler is a kind of comic riff on sound itself.

The wonderful "So Long Elmer" song parody at the start, the sequence of Elmer keeping the girl downstairs (who is involved in a perfectly-developed running-gag) awake with his practicing, his impromptu dance to the medley, his wonderfully non-radio-appropriate novelty acts, and his disruption of the orchestra, all depend on and relate to sound in order to work. It's appropriate that the first talkie short that Keaton really had control over should be a kind of meditation in comedy form on sound itself, not to mention set around a radio station (and the satire of Major Bowes is dead-on without being too much).

Buster himself is great. He style-changing dance is truly impressive and athletic as well as being funny, and one-hundred per-cent physical and non-verbal while still one-hundred per-cent dependent on the sound medium to work. Keaton said in interviews that most early talkies bothered him because there was unnecessary talking -- characters should speak to each other when they have something to say. He puts that principle into effect here and appropriately says nothing, but still carries the scene off completely, while alone in his room, but delivers his dialogue with panache as well. I got a laugh from his delivery alone when he assures the announcer "I made sure of that!" after being asked if his prop whiskey bottle was empty. His problem was never that he couldn't deliver dialogue well. Of course, there are visual gags too, such as when Diana Lewis disappears behind the bus, that bear Keaton's hallmark completely.

"Grand Slam Opera" is really satisfyingly funny all the way through, and it has that unmistakable and unique eccentricity of spirit found in many of Keaton's silent's. That's what really makes his work special, and here it is translated into a sound-dependent style of film-making in a way that really works, over and over again.

Grand Slam Opera (1936)

** (out of 4)

Elmer Butts (Buster Keaton) travels from Arizona to New York where he wants to appear on an amateur-hour talent contest but while in town he also tries to win the heart of a young woman (Diana Lewis) he sees cooking pancakes in a window. These Educational-Keaton pictures were never known for their stories and that's a good thing because there usually wasn't any and that's certainly the case here. It's said that these films were shot on $20,000 budgets and that Keaton pocketed $5,000 of that so it's clear the rest of the money went somewhere other than a screen writer. Pretty much this entire film has Keaton annoying the girl and then finally getting on the radio show where his "talent" is juggling a bottle, which of course doesn't do much for those people listening on a radio. Ha ha. As was the case the majority of the time, this short really doesn't add up to too much in the end, although some might get a kick out of seeing Keaton doing a wide range of tricks. The majority of these comedy bits happen inside a bedroom where Keaton tries to rehears but of course nothing goes right. He tries jumping on a bed and it collapses. He tries to do a trick with a bowling ball and it crashes through the floor. Of course, the girl he loves is in the room below and this just makes her hate him more. Keaton at least gives an energetic performance as he's clearly trying to make something out of nothing. Lewis was pretty bland in her role and Harold Goodwin is also wasted in the role of the band leader who gets into it with Keaton on the air.

"Grand Slam Opera" is the only Educational short film of which Keaton felt proud enough to take story credit. Jim Kline in "The Complete Films Of Buster Keaton" writes the short "is a joy from beginning to end, full of playfully satirical routines from his days in vaudeville, all performed with vitality and assurance in classic Keaton style." He also notes that Keaton was "sober during production and managed to stay away from alcohol throughout the rest of the decade." Variety" called the short "pretty good enough to be sold as a baby feature." Other reviews on this database are far less enthusiastic.