Le roi des Champs-Élysées

This is good movie. I found a fairly clear copy with English subtitles from A-1 video, image and sound properly in-sync, but image tightly cropped, and it can be seen from reading the subs that the movie has none of the awful joke-dialogue that plague the MGM comedies. The story is well put together and, unusually, I can find nothing I would edit down or cut out. It is not a high-budget affair, but the script does not require it.

The notion that a U.S. release of this film might have revived Buster Keaton's career doesn't make any sense: the general public still loved Keaton in the early 1930s, and his worst movies were very successful; the only way of "reviving" his career would have been for a major studio to hand over full production of movie-making to Buster, and I don't see how this film or any other non-Buster directed movie would have accomplished that. However, if the idea is that "Le Roi…" brought Keaton back to his old self, well, that's debatable, but he does not seem to be fighting for his comic life, either.

Of course, under Keaton's direction, the photography might have been pellucid instead of so much shadowy-gray, and the cinematography probably would have focused more clearly on the gag and story elements. If Buster had been completely in control, no doubt he would have found an even higher level of wit or irony in the story, and greater comedy in the details with probably a few innovative stunts as well; but overall "Le Roi…" remains a successful, if lesser Keaton vehicle. It is a particularly surprising and moving accomplishment to have taken place during the most disastrous time of his life, a time of suffering that would have killed anyone with less inner strength and resilience. This is a movie that deserves restoration and perhaps dubbing (so we can always watch the all-important physical action instead of reading).

Someone in France must have thought to exploit the potential of Buster as a schlemiel and a comic mime (which is his character in a nutshell, no?). Certainly this movie respects and uses him better than, say, "What, No Beer?" He is the central character and he gets a chance to run & look beleaguered, but the film lacks any sort of brilliance or madcap inventiveness, except in little details where Buster may have been adlibbing. It's worth seeking out for Keaton fans, for a few reasons: Buster gets to speak French (though he is speaking the lines, his voice is dubbed with a sort of scratchy French voice -- except at one point where his actual voice says "Ouvrir la porte!"); he gets to play a bad guy, an escaped American gangster who leads a chase for the "good" Buster & who shoots cops as he flees them (a surreal perversion of Buster's usual dilemma); and, probably the strangest sight, which comes just before the final fade (to "Fin") where Buster gets the girl, says "Oh, Baby!" and breaks into a big grin. Keaton fans can just imagine how odd it is to see that smileless face (& he remains stonefaced throughout the movie) lighten up and show how happy he is. The fact that this film is in unsubtitled French isn't too much of a drawback, since its sense is conveyed through action. Buster gets to dissolve societal order into chaos at least three times (he tosses away 5 million francs, he gets caught in a knight's helmet & disrupts a stage show, and he leads the cops & gangsters onto the stage of a very boring play, where they shoot each other & the stodgy orchestra, and rouses the audience from its lethargy). Some have said that this movie might have revived Keaton's career from its 1930's abyss, but I don't think so; the acting is too European and the setting is obviously not America, yet it's commonplace, rather than "exotic." It's true that Buster looks good and is in fine form, rather than seeming obviously drunk & depressed, but that doesn't necessarily relate to a movie's acceptance. A curio, particularly if you don't understand French.

The "received opinion" of critics of the past concerning Keaton (including the great James Agee, who ought to have known better) was that sound films killed his career because his speaking voice was too dark and raspy to be funny. This was, and is, total nonsense. Keaton might actually have been *funnier* as a sound era actor, if he had been granted the material and the creative freedom to make the pictures he wanted. This film, made outside Hollywood and indeed outside the US, proved that - as hobbled by alcoholism and depression as he was - the Great Stone Face could still be great.

The funniest and most memorable gag in the film occurs early on when Buster, as a naively ambitious actor who has been hired to distribute advertising flyers for a bank disguised to look like French currency, accidentally gets his hands on the bank's *real* money and starts throwing it to passersby on the streets of Paris. His calm acceptance of the excitement of the crowd as they follow him around, scooping up the bank notes, is hysterical. (In one case, a man about to be married is given money by Keaton, and he runs away from his homely bride, shouting "Saved! Saved!") There is another great sight gag (this time influenced by Rene Clair) of the Board of Directors of the bank weeping and wailing in unison as they discover that Buster has literally tossed away the bank's fortune.

There is one other eye-popping sight gag that I'll never forget. In the gangster's lair, Buster is holding a glass of whiskey in his hand and one of the gangster's henchmen pats Buster on the back a little too roughly, so that the glass of whiskey jumps out of his glass and looks about to spill. Suddenly Buster reaches out and literally catches *every drop* of the precious alcohol in the glass before it hits the floor! Only Keaton could have dreamed up, much less pulled off, such an amazing gag. (The sting in the joke is that, as I have already mentioned, the great man had a serious drinking problem at the time.) Finally, I'd like to comment on his acting. In addition to playing the hapless actor Buster Garnier, he also portrays an escaped hoodlum, Scarface Jim. This was his only role as a villain (if you don't count his incredibly bizarre short, The Frozen North). Yet he is completely credible as the heavy, and it is, in fact, perfectly easy for the audience to guess which character Buster is playing at each moment, even when the gangster and the actor wear the same clothes. So the picture is one of his finest acting triumphs as well as perhaps his last great moment as a comedian.

Though my French is rudimentary, and though the print was unsubtitled, this film was a total joy, and is highly recommended.