Cadet d'eau douce

Okay. Obvious bit first.

This is indeed the source of the most famous scene in all of silent comedy (alongside, perhaps, Chaplin's cogs and Lloyd's clock). Caught up in a hurricane, hiding under a bed that's whisked away in the wind, Buster staggers to his feet only for the front of a house to fall all around him. Except - the tiny window falls directly over Buster. Who just stands there, staring.

We've all seen this a thousand times or more. Before I even knew who Keaton was I'd seen this scene. But even now, going back to watch it (again and again) - it's an extraordinary moment. Keaton had two nails hammered into the ground, marks for his feet, and two inches of room either side. Two inches left, two inches right, Buster would have been killed. Dead centre, and it's wondrous. Perfection. It had to be.

And he doesn't even FLINCH.

But there's something else about it...

Here's a scene, the big scene, not just expensive but incredibly dangerous. Half the crew refuse to watch. Anywhere else, you might imagine this stunt as the grand conclusion, milked for all it's worth. But that was never the Buster Keaton way. Everything had to be done perfectly (the golfing accident in Convict 13, for example, 78 takes...), and if that meant nearly killing yourself for a few seconds three quarters of the way through, so be it. Do the perfect gag, move on, do some more.

Extraordinary. Staggering. Unbelievable.

But, heavens, there's more, so much more... from Buster throwing away his own hat in disgust, to the dough that fell into the toolbox, to Buster's seemingly limitless capacity for wearing clothes under his nightshirt, to all those stunts in the hurricane, to the ingenious ending - a joy, an absolute joy. Unremittingly wonderful.

So this makes him better than Chaplin? Forget it. All I hear is competition, comparison, Keaton better/not better than Chaplin, Laurel better/not better than Lloyd, and all combinations in between. IT DOESN'T MATTER. This could only be a Keaton film, in the same way that Chaplin's best is unmistakeably Chaplin, Lloyd's best unmistakeably Lloyd, Laurel's best unmistakeably Laurel (and Hardy). There's no point bickering. There aren't any prizes to be won. Just accept - just rejoice - that for a brief few years, some of mankind's darkest years, the world was blessed with four unique comic geniuses. It probably never happened before, it maybe never will again. We were, are, will be, all of us, amazingly lucky to have them. And to always have them. So pull up a chair, grab a drink and a loved one, and settle down to this glorious film. And when it's done, stick on 'The Kid' for good measure... and 'Liberty'... and 'Never Weaken'...

... and rejoice ...

STEAMBOAT BILL JR. (United Artists, 1928), directed by Charles F. Reisner, stars Buster Keaton in his third independent production following THE GENERAL (1926) and COLLEGE (1927), his most effective and daring, as well as a premise that personifies him best. It is a fine character study as well, and since Keaton is quite a character, the role he plays is that of a weakling of a son who tries to impress his burly, strong-willed father, wonderfully played by veteran actor Ernest Torrence.

Story: Set in River Junction, Mississippi, William Canfield (Torrence), better known as "Steamboat Bill," owns a riverboat called "The Stonewall Jackson." He has a rival, John James King (Tom Maguire), a wealthy citizen, who attempts to cause Bill's financial ruin with his new river packet called "King" after himself. Canfield receives a telegram from Boston that his son, whom he hasn't seen since he was a baby, is arriving in town by train. Excited about the union, he is soon disappointed when he finds Bill Canfield Jr. (Buster Keaton) not to be the physical built of himself but a weakling sporting checkered clothes and beret, a mustache and playing a ukulele. Also returning home to River Junction is Mary (Marion Byron), King's daughter, whom Bill has already met while attending college. Because Bill and Mary love one another and Canfield and King have become rivals, the fathers attempt to keep these two apart.

A story with enough ingredients for comedy. With the love plot resembling that of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," there is no tragedy involved, but methods of the youths trying to get together at times without the knowledge of their feuding fathers. Scenes involving the meek Keaton and the rugged Torrence are extremely funny, their introduction being with Torrence at the train station to meet the son he hasn't seen in years, to be identified with a carnation, only to find practically every man at the station is wearing one. The element of surprise in finding his son not to be what's expected has been reworked numerous times on screen, the most famous being Universal's comedy-western, DESTRY RIDES AGAIN (1939), where the eagerly awaited sheriff believed to be a strong physical type only to arrive in town only to be a "horse of a different color" (James Stewart). Like Stewart's character, Keaton is considered a fool by many, but on the contrary, he's the opposite, in fact, intelligent when intelligence is needed, especially when it comes to rescuing his father from drowning in a jail cell during a flood that nearly has water covering over his head. Other scenes worth mentioning include father taking son by the hand like a small child to the barber shop to eliminate his mustache, and later to the clothing store where father attempts to change son's image into something more manly. But the high point is that of natural disasters of cyclone and flood that nearly wipes away the town, with the confused Bill actually becoming the hero during all this confusion, leading to the most celebrated scene where Keaton is seen standing in an empty street staring at the damaged surroundings, with the entire facade of a house falling down on him, with the open window frame of the house passing safely over his body, leaving him unharmed. A very dangerous stunt, which might have proved fatal, done without the technology of special effects or computers nearly succeeds in outshining Harold Lloyd's thrill comedies of the day. This alone needs to be seen to be believed. Even when all this is over, there are even more elements of surprises. Watch for them.

STEAMBOAT BILL JR. was introduced to public television around 1983 as part of a weekly series known as SPROCKETS, accompanied by a standard piano score. Later revived to cable television, it was then seen on American Movie Classics starting in 1995 where it was part of that station's annual film preservation series, and ending its run there in 1999. The movie was later presented on Turner Classic Movies in 2001 where it is played as part of its "Silent Sunday Nights." Initially accompanied with an excellent piano score by William Perry from the Paul Killiam collection, TCM sadly discontinued using this print in December 2004 in favor of a restored copy (which is fine) accompanied by scoring that happens to be one the worst ever composed for a silent movie. A pity because STEAMBOAT BILL Jr. is such a fine and exciting comedy, worthy to film students to studying the art and genius of Buster Keaton. Fortunately someone must have been in agreement with the bad scoring considering a new organ score was used in a crisp pint that aired June 21, 2005. Though scoring for STEAMBOAT BILL Jr. has varied in either VHS or DVD formats over the years, personally, the William Perry piano accompaniment is the best of its kind.

The last true Buster Keaton classic from the silent era, and surprisingly something that didn't do financially well when distributed in theaters. In fact, it's been said that United Artists withheld its release for almost a year. Today STEAMBOAT BILL Jr. is critically acclaimed and hailed as one of Keaton's masterpieces, a notch below THE GENERAL but an improvement over COLLEGE. Thanks to television revivals and video/DVD, Buster Keaton comedies such as this should never go out of style. (***)

This follows a pattern that Keaton would follow in a few of his most amazing films. The first half would just set up the situation and incidentally give a few mild jokes along the way. The second part is structured around a frantic set of stunts that are both comic and athletic. These must have astonished when they were new; its an odd thing that all the really interesting effects in films of this era were not for science fiction or action, but comedy.

Today, these effects and particularly Keaton's, astonish ever so much more. Jackie Chan is the closest we have now, or recently. Chan knows that when we see something that we know is real: Chan jumping off a helicopter for instance, and when that is done with a comic tone, for some reason we chuckle more deeply.

(Stephen Chow's projects are a twist on this. We know the stunts aren't real, but they are much more extreme, and they deliberately reference other movies.) This collection of stunts has Keaton take a large river steam paddlewheeler, a rig it up to operate the boiler room by ropes from the pilothouse. Keaton's agility is absolutely phenomenal: today such acrobatics would surely be computer generated. Its not obvious that the man is risking his life. But as with his railroad movie, it is obvious that this is a real machine in a real raging river during real serious wind, though the wind might be generated with machines.

This is big stuff, important to watch and real thrill.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

For the first time since he was a baby, an effete Buster Keaton comes home from Boston to visit his steamboat captain father, who's being troubled by the head of the other, finer steamboat, J.J. King. Of course King's daughter is home to visit her father, too! This completely delightful comedy glides right along, with outstanding physical comedy from Keaton. The lightness of the film is a benefit, as is the short 70m running time. There's no shortage of brilliant gags, my favorite being Keaton trying to get his jailed father to accept his homemade loaf of bread. ("That must of [sic] happened when the dough fell in the tool chest.") I loved the opening, as well, with Bill going along to different shops with his son in order to prepare him for the boat, and the hilarious scene in the hat shop as Junior eyes himself in the mirror as his father suggests these awful hats. The ending is just amazing (and dangerous!), as buildings fall apart due to an awful wind, with Buster doing a disappearing act and fighting to stand up straight and retain his composure. 8/10

Reading the back of the video or DVD case can be misleading as it made this movie to be one in which Buster learns from his dad the ropes of running of steamboat. Well, in the end it looks like he did just that, but his "training" was about less than a minute in this 71-minute film.

The rest of the movie is about other things, such as Buster - reunited with a Dad who never knew him - meeting his father, getting a new outfit (especially a different hat), beginning a romance with the daughter of the competing steamboat operator, later trying to get his father out of jail, on and on.

The part that makes this one of the more memorable silent films of all time is the hurricane segment near the end. There are some amazing scenes in that, including a very famous one in which an entire side of house falls on Buster, who escapes without injury because an open door on the house is exactly where Keaton is standing. He had not been exactly on the right mark, the famous comedian could have been seriously injured in that stunt. The man had guts, that's for sure.

Anyway, our hero does show in the end that he learned a few things about navigating the boat as he rescues all the major characters following the hurricane. Great stuff and a suspenseful finish.