Mooching Through Georgia

The second short in Buster Keaton's series of comedy two-reelers for Columbia Pictures has him playing a simpleton who accidentally joins the Yankee army instead of the Confederate, that his brother (Monte Collins) joins, however he has to protect Buster from the Yankees, who are in an all-out war with the Confederate soldiers. This version is superior than the later remake featuring the Three Stooges, thanks to sight gags, funny dialogue, and the bookend interaction with an elderly Buster and his nemesis in the beginning/end of the short.

Keatonphiles consider Buster's stint at Columbia in the late 1930s and early 1940s to be the nadir of his career. The MGM talkies were awful and not right for his style, but some of them were watchable and all had good production values and supporting players. The Educational shorts, made while Keaton was depressed and drinking almost constantly, are much better than their reputation, even managing to be creative and funny even if they don't approach the greatness of Keaton's independent work. But Columbia? The home of the Three Stooges? Not a fit for Keaton at all, especially when he was given awful material and paired with Elsie Ames, the human embodiment of shrillness itself, ugh.

Mooching Through Georgia (1939) is surprisingly good for a Keaton Columbia short. Buster is kind of a dope, but he is allowed clever and resourceful moments a midst the uninspired slapstick and silly accents. The Civil War setting might make you pine for The General (1926), but it's pretty good nevertheless. Not a gem, but overall painless.

This is one of Keaton's better Columbia shorts.

Buster and his brother, played by Monty Collins, enlist to fight in the Civil War. But Buster has enlisted in the Confederate Army and Monty has joined the Union Army. However, before they can start their own civil war, in march Union and Confederate troops, and the two spend most of the movie rescuing each other. They know where their loyalties lie.

I am tempted to think that a lot of the material arises from the fact that the writer of this short, Clyde Bruckman, was one of Keaton's gagmen, and was credited as co-director of THE GENERAL, and Monty Collins is the son of the man (also named Monty Collins) who played Buster's father in a couple of his movies in the 1920s. However, any discussion of subtext is rendered ridiculous by the fact that the producer and director of this movie is Jules White, to whom a poke in the eye was subtle. So we must take pleasure, instead, in the fact that this is a sharply written movie, tailored for Buster, and that he executes his falls, as always, wonderfully. For those of you who are interested in the subtleties of the pratfall, there is one scene in which Buster and Monty jump out of a window. Buster does a forward roll and lands flat on his back, while Collins lands on his feet. No one working at the time could take a fall like Buster and it's a pleasure to see him do it .... and to watch Collins not even try to compete.

Continuity issues make this considerably less than a perfect Keaton short, but recall what James Agee said of A NIGHT IN CASABLANCA: second rate Marx Brothers is better than anything else. Well, second rate Keaton is better than anything else also, and this is by no means second rate.

I hadn't expected to really enjoy any of the Columbia shorts, but I found this one delightful. No, it's not "The General". Nobody ever handed the reins back over to Buster after Joe Schenck put them in the hands of Louis B. Mayor, so never again would we see what Buster would produce if allowed to just be Buster. But with "Mooching Through Georgia", we get a peek at what could have been. We get as close as Buster -- and Clyde Bruckman -- could get us.

In case Bruckman's name isn't familiar, he's the man who gave Buster a copy of "The Great Locomotive Chase" -- the book that inspired Keaton to film "The General". Bruckman co- wrote and co-directed "The General" with Keaton. The two men worked together quite a bit on some of Keaton's greatest silent works. And even hamstrung by a tight budget and an even tighter shooting schedule, Bruckman and Keaton let the old chemistry shine through in "Mooching Through Georgia".

"Mooching Through Georgia" doesn't even take place in Georgia -- it's set in Kentucky, no doubt via the pen of Bruckman, who was a Civil War buff and knew his setting. It was in Kentucky that you were most likely to find brothers enlisting on opposing sides of the war, and opposing armies passing through one after the other.

And from that very beginning, "Mooching" sets itself apart from the other Columbia shorts. "Mooching" doesn't rely on a totally ludicrous premise and characters so brainless it's a wonder they can tie their own shoes. Buster Keaton and Monte Collins play brothers Homer and Cyrus Cobb, who -- perhaps inadvertently -- enlist on opposite sides of the Civil War, and spend the entire movie keeping each other from being shot as spies. Thus Bruckman takes a very possible scenario, giving his characters human motives rather than cartoonish ones, so even when things get silly, the viewer can still see Homer and Cyrus as people they can relate to and root for.

Keaton doesn't get as much of a chance as we'd like to cut loose, but he does get some fine, understated moments, and an over-the top "death scene" that pokes fun once more of the overacted melodramas Buster gave the world a respite from. The gags are nicely done, and spring from the plot in keeping with a true Keaton film. All in all, "Mooching" is a breath of freshness in the otherwise stale Columbia air, and I'm glad Bruckman and Keaton managed to pull it together one last time.

Sadly, Bruckman's drinking had picked up where Keaton's left off, and the quality of his work deteriorated -- as is clearly documented in the deteriorating quality of the Columbia shorts Bruckman worked on. And unlike Keaton, who managed to reverse the downward spiral, Bruckman was unable to pull out of the tailspin, eventually borrowing a gun from Keaton and using it to shoot himself. A sad ending to a very talented man.

Mooching Through Georgia (1939)

** (out of 4)

Columbia short has an old man (Buster Keaton) telling of how he helped win the Civil War by outsmarting the Yanks. Most of Keaton's sound material was rather hit and miss and that holds true with this short he did for Columbia. I think the biggest problem with some of Keaton's later films is that studios didn't allow him to be Keaton but instead tried turning him into someone else. There's a lot of stuff borrowed from The Three Stooges shorts including numerous hits to the head but Keaton still manages to shine in this unoriginal material. There are a few nice laughs including one scene where Buster and his brother accidentally sign up for opposite sides of the war. Another good joke comes when Buster must face a firing squad. A lot of the jokes are rather lazy and require Keaton to just fall down or stumble across something and these here are the jokes that don't do Keaton's talents any justice. If you're a fan of Keaton then this is worth watching but others should start off with some of his silent classics.