Pardon My Berth Marks

Buster Keaton's brief stint at Columbia is infamous among his fans, viewed as the nadir of his professional life. Critic and avid Keaton fan Imogen Sara Smith claimed she could not get through more than two of them before giving up. Fellow fans often scoff at them and bewail Keaton's lack of creative control.

I'm going to go ahead and say it, risking my life and reputation as a die-hard Buster Keaton fan: I have seen about five of these Columbia shorts and do not think they are as bad as people have said.

Yes, they are totally not in Keaton's style. They are often over the top and dumb. Some of the dialogue is painfully unfunny. Sometimes the supporting actors grate, like Elsie Ames. But Keaton is alert in them; even if he hated the material, he gave it his all. Some of the gags are actually successful, like some of the risqué material on display here in Pardon My Berth Marks or the chase through the train. He had good chemistry with Dorothy Appleby. He still had that wonderful, expressive face and body. And he could still take a fall like no one else in the business.

If you want to hurt while watching Keaton, then Free and Easy or his cameos in the Beach Party movies are much worse than something like Pardon My Berth Marks.

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, the great Buster Keaton was out of work and in desperate need for money so he made a string of forgettable short films for Columbia Pictures. Although he was a comic genius during the silent era, his career in sound movies was mostly horrible due to the industry's unwillingness to simply let him do what he did best and they insisted in trying to force him into uncomfortable molds that just didn't work. Sadly, because Keaton was lousy with money, he was so hard up for cash and unwilling to balk with the studios that he made some dreadful film and TV appearances that probably made him ashamed to look in the mirror. This is a stark contrast to Chaplin and Lloyd who made far fewer sound films but chose them much better. Plus, they knew when to walk away and retain much of their dignity. This is particularly true of Harold Lloyd, who never would have appeared in American-International movies such as BEACH BLANKET BINGO or a particularly wretched episode of "The Twilight Zone" like Keaton did.

As for the Columbia shorts, they were directed and produced by Jules White who was also responsible for the Three Stooges shorts. This is very, very obvious when you watch the Keaton shorts as the plots look indiscernible from the Stooges' films--with the same gags, sound effects and style. In fact, in some cases, Keaton does the same plots the Stooges had first done and this isn't surprising. That's because Columbia OFTEN repeated plots and many of the Stooges' later shorts for the studio are remakes of their earlier films! While Stooges die-hards might excuse this and think ALL of their films are gems, this is definitely NOT true--the remakes are definite duds. As for Keaton fans (and I am definitely one--having seen more of his silent films than practically anyone on the planet), they will also usually admit that his sound films were pretty poor and the Columbia films were at best passable entertainment. Plus, the Stooges' style is a horrible thing to try to fit the great Keaton into. It's akin to putting Greta Garbo in a Marx Brothers film!!!

In this film, Buster plays a guy who has been copy boy at a newspaper for ten years because he's a total idiot. In the scenes at the paper, he breaks things and is generally unfunny. Why they would even keep him on as a copy boy is hard to believe. However, despite being an idiot, he gets his big break because a big story is about to break and none of the reporters are available. So the boss reluctantly sends Buster on assignment. He's to get an interview with Mary Crissman (the name might just be one of the funnier things about the movie, sadly enough). But in the process he breaks things and makes a total nuisance of himself. Eventually, he is able to both get an interview with her AND capture her gangster husband and is a hero. Everyone seems to forget that he's an idiot.

What bothered me most about this film is that Buster plays a moron--not a bumbler, but more like an idiot who somehow gets lucky at the end. There is a fine line between a lovable bumbler and a total moron--sadly, his character definitely crossed the line and was annoying. Nothing like the Keaton of yesteryear and not worth watching.

This film has been called a waste of Buster Keaton. Is it the best possible use of Buster Keaton's particular talents? Probably not -- but it is a very funny short comedy that Keaton's presence only serves to enhance. Curiously, while there is a non-stop stream of gags and jokes that keeps the film moving (and keeps it funny) all the way through, there is perhaps more plot here than a two-reeler of this kind requires. Most of it needlessly complicates the short and can be overlooked.

Even if all the gags are not characteristic of Keaton's character (and many of them actually are) they are almost all effective, and there's a good mix of varieties of humor -- puns (the "Merry Christmas" jokes), situation (Buster mistaken for a newlywed), and, of course, physical comedy (Buster's tumbling around the sleeping carriage with the air of a master).

My favorite gag here and maybe my favorite of what I've seen of Columbia's Keaton series so far is totally sound based (and surprisingly risqué): Buster's fight with his parrot, complete with exclamations of "You bad girl!" and "There was no need to bite my toe!" are dismissed by the other passengers as merely what's to be expected of a pair of newlyweds.

Definitely worth watching for some good laughs.

This being a comedy directed by Jules White, the first thing we establish is that Buster Keaton's character is a half-wit. This is a basic problem with his sound studio pictures. The real Keaton character is not an idiot triumphing over fate by luck, but a dreamer, out of step with the chaotic world, who triumphs -- or sometimes sinks --by stoic perseverance. He learns his lesson in the school of hard knocks.

But this is 1940, not 1927, and Buster is toiling in the Columbia short subjects department, not building features with his hand-picked crew. And he's got Jules White, who thinks that sheer pain frequently applied is the only source of comedy. So there is a constant struggle between Keaton, backed by his co-director from THE GENERAL, Clyde Bruckman, as writer, and Jules White as producer-director.

Unhappily, Jules White wins. People get sat on, people get hit on the forehead by shoes with loud sound effects. But Keaton wins a few battles. He still takes a fall beautifully and he has a nice little sequence trying to undress in an upper berth. So don't expect a classic, but do expect some wonderful little bits.

Just ignore the parrot.

Pardon My Berth Marks (1940)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Buster Keaton gets a job as a reporter and he must track a woman to Reno. This woman was married to a gangster and she's running away to get a divorce but Keaton gets her into one mess after another. This here is certainly the weakest of the Keaton/Columbia shorts that I've seen. Once again poor Keaton must go through one unfunny gag after another and most of these gags are running into doors, hitting his head on the berth or just falling down. Another problem is that they have Keaton playing an idiot and this just isn't very funny and it certainly goes against all the classic Keaton out there. The film only has a few small laughs and most of these come from a talking parrot so that there should tell you how badly Keaton's talents are wasted.