उपयोगकर्ता समीक्षाएं

A far funnier film than I was led to believe. All Keaton fans usually hate the Metro movies, but there are delights here. Reginald Denny makes an excellent farceur and the inimitable Charlotte Greenwood is a surprisingly good match with Keaton. They have some exhausting physical scenes with each other and somehow, it clicks. Buster undergoes more punishment in these pictures than the ones he wrote and directed. It is almost as if someone at MGM decided that masochism was what made him funny. Nevertheless, he manages to shine as a timid soul who turns himself into a very enthusiastic lover. The film is "stagey" in that it keeps at times to a rendering very much like a proscenium theatre. It's fast. And fun.

Buster talks! Seeing this 1931 talkie was somewhat of a shock. Sure, Buster stuck around long enough to make plenty of great sound films, but this one is early enough to still have the ambiance of a silent comedy, which it occasionally lapses into. Hearing Buster talk here was almost an unexpected surprise. The film does start off slow with too much time devoted to setting up the plot. However, once the characters arrive in the hotel, the comic action is non-stop. Buster is great, as always, but Charlotte Greenwood almost steals the show as Polly. A great early comedienne, unjustly forgotten and underrated. This film is actually a re-make of an earlier silent, which I would love to track down for comparison.

This is a great film that is very funny especially once it gets going. The premise is that an engaged couple wants to wed but can't do so until the girl's older sister does so (they don't want her to appear to be an old maid). The sister is having a hard time finding anyone to marry because she insists her husband be a great lover (and have great other things, as a sly comment as one dumped suitor comes out of the swimming pool implies). Into this madness comes Buster Keaton who is run over accidentally by the fiancé. Sensing an opportunity, the fiancé begins to spread the rumor that Keaton is a great lover. Soon not only the "old maid" sister, but every other woman in the area is pursuing Keaton.

Keaton was a master comedian and it really shows here. I'm just floored that this, like many of his other sound films aren't better known, since Keaton really did manage to keep the laughs coming for over 50 years in the movies. This is a perfect example of the good stuff he did that most people don't know about. This is a very funny comedy full of wicked pre-code japes as well as typical Keaton style physical gags. I put this film on expecting to smile here and there and instead found myself chuckling steadily through out.

Recommended to anyone wants to see a good screwball comedy with more than a few risqué moments.

"Parlor, Bedroom, & Bath" combines Buster Keaton's comic skills with a decent supporting cast and a light-hearted story about tangled romances. The first half is mostly bland, but things pick up later in the movie.

Jeff wants to marry his sweetheart Virginia, but Virginia refuses to get married until her fussy, spinsterish older sister Angie gets married first. When Jeff runs into (literally) mild-mannered nonentity Reggie Irving (Keaton), he decides to pass off Irving as a notorious playboy, to arouse Angie's interest. The plot also involves some other characters and their own romantic difficulties, and the build-up goes on for too long. It is all rather slow-going for much of the film, with the only laughs coming when Keaton gets an occasional chance to display his non-verbal comic ability. The part worth waiting for comes in the second half, when all of the characters converge on a hotel, in a lengthy and pretty good comic sequence.

Overall, it's not much when compared with Keaton's silent films. But if you watch, make sure to stick around for the last half of the film, when things get a lot funnier.

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.

Buster Keaton hated farces. He complained that they always depend on misunderstandings that could easily be cleared up with a few facts, and hence insult the intelligence of both the audience and the actors. The frantic pace and irrational behavior required to keep these simple exchanges of information from taking place destroy Keaton's precise, deliberate timing, his subtle expressiveness, and the kind of elaborate, carefully planned mechanical gags that were his specialty. Parlor, Bedroom and Bath is a good example of the kind of material MGM thought suited Keaton and forced on him over his objections. Not only is it the wrong style of comedy, it casts him in the humiliating role of a nerdy shrimp who is continually insulted and dismissed by other characters. In his own films Buster often played an innocent, shy young man, which worked fine in silence. Sound changes that: a man obviously in his thirties confessing that he's never so much as kissed a girl is merely pathetic. Likewise, in his own movies Buster, while ever the underdog, is dashing, ingenious and convincingly romantic, while here he is a bumbling lunkhead who is scorned by women. It's no wonder Buster was hitting the bottle at this time.

All that said, Parlor, Bedroom and Bath is not really an unpleasant film, unless you start thinking about what a comedown it was for Buster Keaton. In general I love the movies of the early thirties, and this one has the elegant fashions and saucy attitude of the era. It's quite "pre-code," though as noted above the risqué atmosphere clashes crudely with the innocence of the hero. A humble sign-tacker who is smitten with a wayward society beauty, he is passed off as a well-known rake by a man who wants to marry the woman's younger sister (who refuses to marry until her older sister does—how's that for an up-to-date plot?) The opening of the film was shot at Keaton's home, the "Italian villa," and there's some slight charm in the early scenes in which Buster's character, having been hit by a car, recuperates in the tender care of his leading lady, who has been told he's a notorious playboy and hence admires him. The one unmistakable Keaton touch comes midway through the film when he restages the closing gag from One Week, wrecking a car instead of a house. Lacking the element of surprise as well as the buildup from the earlier film, the gag loses a lot, but at least it's obviously his work. The remainder of Parlor, Bedroom and Bath deteriorates into an increasingly shrill and hectic bedroom farce with all the characters running around a suite of hotel rooms in their pajamas. The whole film is peppered with the kind of dopey dialogue that Buster detested, and which he tosses off with all the lightness of a millstone around his neck. "Don't give me puns. Don't give me jokes. No wisecracks," he said disgustedly in a later interview—the same in which he commented, "Life is too serious to make farce comedy." Not surprisingly, Buster looks pretty depressed throughout, though not yet marked by the alcoholism that's visible in his later MGM movies. He's still a man in his prime, if only there were anyone to recognize his talents.

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.

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.

PARLOR, BEDROOM, AND BATH is not a total waste. It is always curious to see a transitional film, and this is in several ways. It is an early Buster Keaton talkie, and demonstrates how quickly the MGM brass could desert a brilliant film maker due to total lack of interest and sympathy in his abilities. Having demonstrated in THE CAMERAMAN that he was capable of working under others and turning in superior work, Keaton still did not impress his bosses. So this programmer (there is no better way of describing it) was given to him - and only picks up when he is able to do some athletic/inventive sight gags.

The transition is also interesting for another reason - Reginald Denny. Recalled now as a usually impeccably well mannered, and elegant, British character actor (typical role: the architect in MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE), in the late silent film period Denny was a leading man in social comedies. This explains why, when PRIVATE LIVES was made in 1931, he played Norma Shearer's deserted husband. As I mentioned in my review of that film, he's capable in the role, but nothing special. What is killing about his performance is that the originator of that role was a close friend of Noel Coward's: Laurence Olivier.

Denny is given a role, fully as important to the plot, as Keaton. Maybe more so, as Keaton is pulled into the story by Denny's activities.

Taking a backhanded flip from THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, Denny wants to marry the younger of two sisters, who won't marry unless her older sister (the "Katerina Minola" of the plot) marries first. While not as violent as Shakespeare's Kate, Angelica Embry (Dorothy Christie) is sharp tongued about men and turns them all off. She has never found one that is satisfying. Denny runs accidentally into Keaton, and decides (for no really strong reason - a weakness in this farce) to present him as a great lover to Angelica. The plot really is how Angelica grows interested in Keaton, and he has to be trained to be a great lover. But other women hear of his reputation, and he is pursued by them. Frankly his bridegroom pursued by hundreds of angry would-be brides in SEVEN CHANCES was funnier.

Yet there are two sequences that stand out, that suggest what he might have done. One, I've noticed, is not liked in some of these reviews, but it has some sparks in it. He is told how to address Angelica, and keeps practicing "Oh, my darling...I love you madly...I want you badly." or words to that effect. Keaton is progressively more and more bored by these idiotic words, and when practicing with Angelica's sister Virginia (Sally Eilers) grabs the girl about the arms, and shakes her back and forth towards and away from him. It seems at first wooden and tedious, until one realizes that Keaton is being a little subversive here. Even though the film code was not fully in place in 1931, only an idiot would have failed to notice that when Keaton is doing this shaking, the rhythm of him and Eilers happens to resemble a couple having sex. It sort of undercuts the value of the words that Keaton is trying to use to sound soulfully romantic!

He does this several times, each time getting grimmer and grimmer and seemingly more willing to cut to the sexual climax chase.

The other moment is with Charlotte Greenwood. In the film she has fainted in his hotel room, and he knows that the hotel detective (Ed Brophy) is trying to catch him with a woman in his room. Knowing that Brophy is headed for his room, Keaton tries to move the unconscious Greenwood into an open closet. But she's large than he is, and he can't budge her. So, he decides to do a little mechanical activity. He removes the door of the closet from it's hinges, and lays it down so he can roll Greenwood on top. Then, slowly, he pushes the door back so it looks like it is closed. Brophy and some others break in. "Where's that woman who came in here?", Ed demands to know. Keaton, casually leaning on the door of the closet shrugs his shoulders. He almost gets away with it until a fed up Brophy, who can't find any trace of Greenwood, grabs Keaton to get the truth out of him. Then the closet door crashes down revealing a still unconscious Charlotte, much to Brophy's surprise.

Keaton liked this logical trick with doors and their hinges. He would use it years later, in a variant manner, in a comedy with Red Skelton and Esther Williams, only to have Skelton use it to confuse a nasty watch dog.

But those two moments were rarities in this film. I'll give it a "5" for the sake of the "Great Stone Face", but it really is a "3" or a "4".

Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton were the top comedy actors of early filmdom, each with his own characteristic persona. And, among all of the early and later comedians, none played a better dumb straight face role than Keaton. Not until Peter Sellers came along was there another actor who could so well mix straight face with buffoonery, slapstick, screwball antics and clever - but ever so short, lines.

Keaton proved to be as good in the talkies as he had been in the silent movies. But for the stripping of his creative freedoms in new contracts after the advent of sound, he might have given us many more years of great comedic roles. Thankfully, recent generations are coming to see the genius and talent of this great entertainer.

It is tempting, as some reviewers have alluded, to judge Keaton mostly on his slapstick scenarios, which were often so prominent in his best silent films. But, Keaton was so much more than falling down comedy. And he continued to show his broader genius into his first talkies, as this film shows - even as the studios kept imposing more and more strictures that would eventually relegate him to small and then bit parts. When given good scripts and a fine supporting cast with good roles, Keaton and company could make smashing comedies. This is one such film, with Reginald Denny, Charlotte Greenwood and some others helping build the comedy.

In Parlor, Bedroom & Bath, we see Keaton at his deadpan best. Just listen, look and laugh. How anyone can watch this film and not howl during a good half dozen segments is beyond me. The film itself is wacko from the start. So, put the best wacko actor of the time in it and all you have is a great laugh vehicle to enjoy time and again.

PB & B pokes fun at a lot of aspects and stations of life. The rich and trivial, success and workaholics, glamor and the plain, marriage and love, fidelity and infidelity - all get a little treatment with humor and slapstick. It's too bad for those few folks who may have watched this film and just don't know how to laugh. Sometimes, we have to look for the genius and great in the simple. And there's plenty of that in this film. I wish all who watch it anew the same or more laughter from the head and the heart that I have had.

Here are some favorite lines from this film. This IMDb page for the move has many more under the Quotes section.

Jeffrey Haywood, "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll marry Angelica myself." Virginia Embrey, "What?" Jeffrey, "Yeah, and then I'll poison her and marry you." Virginia, "Where are you going? Jeffrey, "Where am I going? To get the poison."

Jeffrey Haywood, to Reginald Irving, "I might fix it so she could be the mother of your children." At that, Reginald faints.

Jeffrey Haywood, "Listen, Polly, we've always been good friends, haven't we?" Polly Hathaway, "Yes. But you're scaring the friendship out of me."

Reginald Irving, offering to pay the farmer for their ride to the hotel on his hay wagon after their car lost a wheel, "How much do I owe you?" Hay wagon driver, "Ya think two dollars would be too much?" Reginald, "Yes." Wagon driver, "Well, then give me a dollar."

Polly Hathaway, "You have all the passion of an infuriated clam."

This film was filmed at Keaton's own home.

It's amazing to see how luxuriously he lived before the downfall.

Check out that pool!!!!

Its an MGM film, so they were still putting some money into the production.

One of the better Keaton talkies. Some good gags.

The plot:

Reginald Denny plays the role of Jeffrey Haywood, who wants to get married to Virginia Embrey (Sally Eilers).

However, Virginia refused to marry unless her older sister, the hard-to- please Angelica (Dorothy Christy) gets married first. Angelica, in turn, finds every man she knows too dull and predictable, and for this reason prefers to stay single. J

eff then tries to make Angelica interested in the mild-mannered and timid Reggie Irving (played by Keaton) passing him off as a notorious playboy to intrigue her.

He asks his friend Polly to teach Reggie "how to treat a woman right", but he turns out to be a disastrous learner.

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.

Watching Buster Keaton's movies after 1929, where when he no longer had creative control, is a bit like seeing a magnificent animal in a zoo. He's a stunning creature that captivates us, I mean this is Buster Keaton after all, but we cannot help but feel sad for him.

In this case, we do get enough glimpses of him running free, both literally and figuratively, that the film is at least worth watching. The scene I liked best was the one on the train tracks, which he actually recycled from 'One Week' (1920), but it's still fantastic. I also liked him climbing down a wall from a second story balcony, sprinting about the grounds, and diving into a pool along the way. He does some nice physical comedy with Charlotte Greenwood, making an interesting pair with her because of their heights (she was 5'9" vs. Keaton 5'5"). In one shot they're behind a telephone pole, with him standing on her shoulders. In another she lifts him off the ground during a passionate embrace, and his legs are up in the air. The film has a silly plot, as he also gets amorous with a couple other women (Joan Peers and Natalie Moorhead) to prove he's virile enough for a third (Dorothy Christy), so that she can get married, so that her younger sister in turn can get married (yes yes, sheesh). However, there are some other cute moments to help offset that, such as him slipping all over the wet hotel floor with several others, even if that bit was probably taken too far.

I also thought some of the pre-Code bawdiness was amusing, such as Christy telling a suitor early on that she's dropping him because he "doesn't come up to specifications" after seeing him in a bathing suit. "You can't judge a husband in a bathing suit," he says. "No, but you can get a rough idea," she answers before walking off. Later, after Buster checks in to a hotel with Peers as Mr. and Mrs. Smith, she's all wet, so Buster looks into his suitcase to see if he has anything dry she can wear. She pulls out lingerie, and asks Buster why he has it. "Oh, I always carry those things,' he says. "Reggie, you wicked, wicked man," she responds.

It's Greenwood that has some real fun though, trying to arouse the shy Keaton. After striking a pose only to have him stand there dumbfounded, she quips "Well come and get this, are you anchored?" As he tentatively puts his arms around her, she sarcastically says "I am here for a quite evening. You know, you're dead and you won't lay down." Later she notes "You have all the passion of an infuriated clam." Another that brought a smile was her saying "I'm not supposed to be your maiden Aunt, I'm supposed to be party of the second part in a regular orgy. In a regular orgy! In a kiss! Let me show you a kiss!" ... but humorously pronouncing the 'g' in orgy hard, as in goat.

Of course, as Buster goes from shy and awkward, to a riled up sex maniac, this extended sequence in the hotel where he makes out with four different women isn't exactly politically correct. If you're a Keaton fan, there's enough here to make it watchable, just guard your expectations and enjoy seeing him. If you're not a Keaton fan (yet), skip this one and start with his earlier work.

For all the wealth a person has, money can't insure a person's happiness. Actor Buster Keaton was constantly learning that lesson as his MGM contract, although lucrative, wasn't making him the happiest man seen on the screen. Knowing the background of the comic during the time he made February 1931's "Parlor, Bedroom and Bath," today's viewer can almost feel the angst Keaton was undergoing in his personal life. His marriage was crumbling, his romantic affairs were unsatisfying, his finances were affected by the Stock Market Crash of 1929, and his drinking was getting the better of him. This third movie under the MGM studio banner displays an unevenness that pales in comparison to his earlier shorts. As one reviewer noted, what could easily have been a two-reeler short has been stretched out to a full-length movie, albeit a 72-minute one.

The fascinating aspect of "Parlor, Bedroom and Bath" is the first third was filmed in and outside the Italian villa Keaton had built for his family in 1926. Costing $300,000 in mid-1920s money, the 10,000 square foot mansion sits on three-and-a-half acres of prime real estate in Beverly Hills. So magnificent the house is that it is still standing, a rare feat for houses built back then in that particular area. His neighbors were Tom Mix, Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino, and Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks' Pickfair. When he and his wife, Natalie Talmadge, divorced in 1932, she took the villa along with their kids. Eventually, the house was owned by Cary Grant and his rich wife Betty Hutton. James Mason later bought the house and discovered an old film vault next to the room Buster had set up as his own private film editing suite. The new owner had someone drill the lock, and found reels of old film that had the "combined value at the time worth more than that of the estate," according to Mason. The pile included a pristine print of Keaton's classic "The General" as well as one of "Parlor, Bedroom and Bath.'

At 35, Keaton plays a chaste Reggie Irving, whose job is to nail posters on telephone polls. He gets caught in the middle of a wild romantic crusade where one sister, Virginia (Sally Ellers) insists on waiting until her older sister, Angelica (Dorothy Christy) gets married before she does. Virginia's fiancé, Jeffrey (Reginald Denny), fixes that Reggie will be Angelica's husband. This pre-code film encourages Reggie to act like he has a history of a number of affairs with beautiful women in order to entice the older sister to fall in love with him.

There's some ribald humor mixed in this parlor/bedroom farce, which include a newspaper society columnist, Polly (Charlotte Greenwood), attempting to teach Keaton the fine art of lovemaking.

Greenwood steals the show, overshadowing even Keaton. The tall veteran silent film actress was known for her long legs and high kicks. She jokingly described herself as "the only woman in the world who could kick a giraffe in the eye." "Parlor, Bedroom and Bath" uses her six-foot height towering over the much shorter Keaton to her advantage in several scenes. Her antics proves the updated version of the 1917 play of the same name by Charles William Bell could still sustain some laughs 14 years later. Was the feature film a verifiably Keaton classic? As one modern day reviewer wrote, "The overall feel of the film is polished farce, and it doesn't sit side by side with Keaton's downplayed, ironic slapstick style very well." But the movie does offer a rare glimpse of the actor's real home. The opulent estate shows why, to keep up with the mortgage payments, he signed with MGM.

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.

Coming off of some pretty good comedic films such as the Cameraman this ones a big letdown. It's too bad Buster was given such weak material to start his career in 'talkies'. In films like this Buster just looked like an idiot instead of an innovator. A pity. Charlie Chaplin excelled at this point while poor Buster languished. The real genius now deservedly stood in the spotlight. Einstein would attend the premiere of a film like City Lights but can you imagine him seeing this garbage. This is like a Marx Brothers film made by someone who has just come off fresh from a lobotomy. Skip it. Save your money and time. Harold Lloyd looks like a genius next to crap like this.

If Buster Keaton's first talking picture was Parlor, Bedroom and Bath instead of Free and Easy, I don't think his career would have ended the way it did. In Free and Easy, he was clearly not used to talking and nervously stumbled across his lines with less-than-stellar timing, almost as if English weren't his first language and he didn't really know when his cues were. Within a year, he miraculously learned English; there was nothing whatsoever wrong with his timing in Parlor, Bedroom and Bath. He understood his character, said his lines exactly the way they should be said, and added to the humor of the film. This is a good quality comedy, not just something you'll watch and pretend to enjoy for Buster's sake.

The story starts off like a modern version of The Taming of the Shrew: younger sister Sally Eilers can't get married until her older sister Dorothy Christy gets married first. Dorothy is a maneater and no one will get near her-until Buster falls in love at first sight, as he so often does. Dorothy won't have anything to do with him unless he's a real man, so Sally's fiancé Reginald Denny helps everyone out. If Buster can pass himself off as a ladies' man, Dorothy will marry him. It's easier said than done, though. When Reginald asks if Buster's had any experience with women, he answers, "Well, I used to sell vacuum cleaners."

Shakespeare's plot disappears shortly afterwards, but it's an adorable setup all the same. Reginald's devotion to the cause is sweet, but Buster's lack of romantic finesse is side-splittingly funny. After many failed attempts, Reginald comes up with a foolproof scenario: if Dorothy catches Buster in the act, she'll know he's a Casanova. "You're going to have a love affair tonight," he announces. Buster frowns. "Aw, I'm real nervous. Can it be tomorrow night?"

It's worth noting that Parlor, Bedroom and Bath was based off C.W. Bell and Mark Swan's hit Broadway play. The screenplay is wordy, and Buster still keeps up! There's a perfect balance of verbal wit and slapstick humor, though, including the second act's lengthy seduction. Remember in It's a Wonderful Life when Donna Reed says, "He's making violent love to me," and as a modern audience member, you didn't really know what that meant? Well, if you watch Parlor, Bedroom and Bath, you will. Buster usually has a kiss or two in his movies, but he's never been given this many love scenes before. The kisses are so long, so frequent, and so physical, that sometimes Buster and the girl in his arms wind up horizontally entwined on the couch or the floor. This movie contains the "violent lovemaking" of yesteryear. It's hilarious. You need to watch it, for Buster, for the pre-code sex humor, or to find out what violent lovemaking is.

PARLOR, BEDROOM AND BATH (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1931), directed by Edward Sedgwick, stars comedian, Buster Keaton, in his third starring talkie that was previously filmed in the silent era (1920) featuring Eugene Palette. Taken from the play by Charles W. Bell and Mark Swan, and classified as a "farce comedy," the movie was another attempt to broaden Keaton's range as a deadpan character. With Keaton's usual stock players as Cliff Edwards and Edward Brophy once again in support, and not assuming the common name of "Elmer," it did offer Keaton an opportunity to work opposite the tall and scene stealing Charlotte Greenwood, one of the great comic delights from stage and screen.

Opening at a social function gathering by the swimming pool of a luxurious estate, the story begins with Virginia (Sally Eilers) refusing to marry Jeffrey Haywood (Reginald Denny) until her older sister by four years, Angelica (Dorothy Christy) marries first, so to spare her from being labeled an "old maid." Anxious to marry Virginia, Jeffrey offers to marry Angelica himself as a gesture. In the meantime, outside the estate is Reginald Irving (Buster Keaton) posting a sign on the telephone pole, observing Angelica in her bathing suit, and immediately liking what he sees. As Jeffrey drives off the estate, he accidentally hits the lovesick Reginald on the road. Taking the unconscious stranger upstairs to the bedroom where he's examined by a doctor, Angelica agrees to look after him until he's well again. Jeffrey stumbles upon an idea of getting Reginald together with Angelica, and does so by passing him off as an important "outdoors man," which soon arouses other women to take an interest in him as well. With Reginald and Angelica now engaged, Jeffrey and Virginia can make immediate plans for themselves. However, a week before the wedding, it is learned that Angelica refuses to marry Reginald due to he being truthful and loyal, not the type of man she'd prefer for a husband. In fact, she'd be happier having a husband she cannot trust so she add to the fun of being both suspicious and jealous. Jeffrey's next scheme is to hire Polly Hathaway (Charlotte Greenwood), his friend and gossip columnist, to go with Reginald at the Seaside Hotel where they are to register in a room as Mr. and Mrs. Smith. While there, Polly is to give him lessons in lovemaking ("Darling, I love you madly. I can't live without you. You must NEVER leave me"), as Jeffrey arranges for Angelica to walk in and catch them in the act, which would prove to her that Reginald can misbehave just like any other man. Complications occur as Angelica's friends, Nita Leslie (Joan Peers) and her career-minded husband, Frederick (Walter Merrill), having one of their frequent quarrels because he's away on business more than being with her. Wanting to make him jealous, Nita decides on going away with the first man she sees, who happens to be Reginald, who in turn, mistakes Nita for Polly, thus, heading over to the hotel where things don't go along as originally planned. Others seen in the cast include: Natalie Moorehead (Leila Crofton); and Sidney Bracey (Horace, the Butler).

While this would be the only movie pairing of Keaton and Greenwood, it's a pity they were more apart than together. It also makes one wish there was role switching, having Greenwood play a homely heiress of $8 million rather than the attractive Dorothy Christie to broaden the comedy situations, or having Keaton and Greenwood being a mix-matched married couple, or possibly casting her as a man-chaser as she did with Eddie Cantor in PALMY DAYS (1931). As it stands, PARLOR, BEDROOM AND BATH succeeds mostly on the gag material, including one lifted from Keaton's silent comedy, ONE WEEK (1920), changing a model home to car stuck on a railroad track, followed by an element of surprise. Chases provided are in the silent film tradition, minus any underscoring to set the tone and mood. Funny moments involve Cliff Edwards as the hotel bellboy stumbling upon Keaton kissing different women every time he enters the room. Edward Brophy as the hotel detective adds to some fairly good the amusements as well. Still a pratfall lovesick saphead with a sad face, Keaton does whatever he can to give this movie any substance of comedy material to make it work. Occasional laughs here and there, but they are infrequent.

PARLOR, BEDROOM AND BATH began turning up frequently on television around the 1980s when broadcast mostly on public television. It even played as a 45 minute featurette in a weekly televised series, "Matinee at the Bijou," before turning up on video cassette (some 1990s prints on a double bill with Keaton's other MGM comedy, SPEAK EASILY (1932), DVD, and cable television's Turner Classic Movies. (**)