Parlor, Bedroom and Bath

Reading the other reviews and the lack of comments, I wasn't looking forward to watching this, but it was the only film I hadn't watched on a 3-DVD set of Keaton films that I've owned for some time. The set has 3 of Buster's talkies and I was more familiar with his silent classics. I really did enjoy this, although, as other reviewers said, this starts out kind of slow. It's a decent precode farce about 2 sisters, one engaged to a man who wants to get married ASAP (she won't marry before her older sister so she won't be known as an 'old maid'), and her older sister who is attracted to bad boys.

Buster Keaton starts out nailing up signs on 'telegraph' poles and fences and while distracted watching the older sister on the diving board of the pool at Keaton's actual home, walks in front of a moving car and is hit. Keaton plays a timid, girl shy character (the kind of role that MGM often put him in, which was nothing like him in real life, judging from the number of affairs he was supposedly having around that time) who is supposed to play the part of a ladies' man.

The second half that takes place in a hotel is much better than the slower first half. This is where Buster goes from being almost scared of women to being sexually aggressive within a few hours. It's during this part of the movie where Buster gets to show off some of his physical comedy that he's probably best known for, although I think Buster was better off at showing absurd situations - and this movie is pretty much just that.

When I watched "Matinee at the Bijou" on Saturday afternoons on PBS during the early '80s, this was one of the movies featured there. It was also my first exposure to Buster Keaton having previously read about him in an encyclopedia of movie comics called "The Funsters". The most funny parts I remember from that first viewing was when he kept trying to do his "I Love You" routine while extending his arms to various women in a mechanical way. Now that I've watched this again on the "Industrial Strength Keaton" DVD collection, I found it even more funnier having just seen many of his silent shorts with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and his later TV appearances and industrial films. Okay, so maybe some of the dialogue was a bit contrived and some scenes were a bit frantic but still I managed to laugh during the whole thing especially during the free-for-all-finale. Also, Cliff Edwards as the bell boy and Charlotte Greenwood as the woman Buster was supposed to meet at the hotel deserve special mention for their chemistry with The Great Stone Face. Oh, and the reactions of Joan Peers as Nita, who's trying to get her husband jealous, as she reacts to Buster's accidental "moves" were also funny to me. Really, I was just doubled over with laughter at this one especially during some visual stuff like that car-train sequence or the wet-floor-everyone-slips-on scene. So on that note, if you're a Keaton fan curious about these early talkies with him, I highly recommend Parlor, Bedroom and Bath. P.S. Ms. Peers was another performer who's from my birthtown of Chicago, Ill.

Surprisingly funny for one of Buster Keaton's widely derided MGM talkies. Meek little Buster is built up as one of the world's great lovers, part of a plot to marry off a society dame and clear the way for her younger sister's nuptials. Hijinks ensue in this romantic farce.

Buster may not be doing the incredible stuntwork that made him famous in the silent era, but his lovable persona and physical comedy fit well with the rest of the ensemble in this film. Buster's always fun to watch, and here he's surrounded by a handful of lovely ladies, as well as the inimitable Charlotte Greenwood and familiar character actors Cliff Edwards and Edward Brophy. Greenwood's tall and lanky physical shtick is a great match for Keaton, and their scenes are fun. The extended hotel room scene is a riot, as Buster confusedly practices his seduction technique on several unsuspecting women.

If you ignore that this film is part of the downhill slide Buster Keaton's professional life is experiencing at the hands of MGM, this is a rather enjoyable example of a pre-code farce, particularly the last half of the film that is set at the hotel. The first half is rather slow and clumsy, and has a rather unbelievable premise - a wealthy young woman, Angelica, is only attracted to womanizing cads, and furthermore only wants to marry such a man. Normally, this would just be her problem, but her younger sister wants to marry, and due to custom cannot until the older sister does so. The younger sister's fiancée enlists Buster's character, Reggy, to play the part of international playboy and hopefully future husband for Angelica since Reggy is quite attracted to the older sister, but is completely inexperienced with women.

The second half of the film is the amusing part. It's set at a hotel where Buster is supposed to have a prearranged rendezvous with a woman and be discovered by Angelica, thus sealing his reputation as a cad and stealing her heart. Unfortunately, Buster takes the wrong woman to the hotel - and she's a woman who happens to have an insanely jealous husband. The woman Buster is supposed to meet, Charlotte Greenwood, is the funniest part of this film. She literally steals the "training session" scene she has with Buster. Cliff Edwards has some funny lines too as the hotel bell boy who keeps walking in on Keaton who is always in the embrace of a different woman each time.

It's just so sad to see MGM casting Buster once again as a clueless bumbling fool and doing their best to make it look ridiculous that Buster could ever be considered a ladie's man. Keaton does the best he can with the material he is given, but it makes you wonder what could have been if anyone had listened to his ideas about making comedies in the sound era.

As for film quality, I have never seen a copy of this film that was not unacceptably fuzzy. The only one I'd recommend is the copy that comes with "Industrial Strength Keaton". That copy has been restored and it shows. Plus it has a commentary track and there is a featurette included about Keaton's mansion, the Italian villa, which is the setting for the first half of this film.

I have to agree with other commenters that this was a poor choice of films for Buster Keaton. The early part of the film is disappointing, as it provides Keaton with no opportunities to do the amazing physical stunts he's rightly famous for. I found it dismaying to see Keaton, who flipped over the rigging in "The Love Nest" and made the clotheslines his playground in "Neighbors" deflated by a half-slack garden hose.

But the hotel sequence, in which an amazonian blonde tries to teach Keaton's pathologically girl-shy character to be a real Casanova, turns things around. "Buster Keaton" and "screen kiss" are two ideas that don't seem to go that well together, but Keaton turns the combination into something that's purely his. Like the climax of "Steamboat Bill Jr.", Keaton's character finally seizes control of a situation where he's previously been a victim of circumstance. Suddenly he figures out how this works and charges ahead in his own unorthodox, exuberantly acrobatic way. And that moment is worth waiting for.