Cadet d'eau douce

Buster Keaton was a lunatic. He had to have been. The stunts he was able to pull off in this movie leave me questioning his sanity. This film has moments where you won't believe his stunts weren't done via some nifty camera forgery. It's just amazing that his stunts were accomplished while one camera(yes, just one) was aimed at a spot that was marked for Buster to hit. This precision had to be met or death and disaster could follow. This was most apparent in the cyclone scene with the wall of a house that fell to the ground. Any deviation by an inch from the mark and a house could fall on top of Buster's head. I had to watch that scene over and over again. This film is filled with great gymnastics from Buster, as he did hit all of his marks. Although this movie has some of Buster's best comedic gymnastics, there are a couple of memorable scenes of pantomime. There's the scene near the beginning of the film when Buster is trying on an array of hats for his father. Buster looks right into the camera as if looking into a mirror, just a great effect. And later there's another scene where Buster tries to break his father out of jail by pantomiming the instructions of escape by using only his hands and a loaf of bread. By the end of the film you'll be marveling at Buster's dexterity while he operates the steamboat by climbing up and over or jumping down and around the ship, running the ship by himself and with the help of a few helpfully placed ropes. This movie has it all for Buster fans. 10/10.

Clark Richards

This is one of Keaton's best, just behind The General and Sherlock Jr. The story is much more coherent without the surreality of Sherlock Jr., yet has more of Keaton's famous physical comedy that wasn't as prevelant in The General.

Everyone talks about the Wall Falling Scene. It is astounding to be sure, but for sheer belly laughs, watch the scene in which Bill Jr. is made to try on a multitude of hats by his father. Note that the one hat Bill Jr. seems to hate is Keaton's own signature "Porkpie" hat.

In the riverside town of River Junction, Captain William Canfield (Ernest Torrence) has an old steamship and disputes the passengers with the powerful banker John James King (Tom McGuire), who has a brandy new passenger vessel. William is informed that his unknown son William Canfield Jr. (Buster Keaton) will arrive by train from Boston to visit him. When Willie arrives, William trains him to work with him in his ship. However, Willie meets his friend Marion King (Marion Byron), the daughter of James King, and they date each other, against the will of their fathers. When a hurricane reaches River Junction, Willie rescues his father and his future father-in-law from the river.

"Steamboat Bill Jr." has a silly but funny beginning, and an amazing hurricane sequence, with very bold scenes. The timing and the physical capability of Buster Keaton are very impressive, and in the present days it is impossible to imagine shooting the scenes in the storm without the use of computer, so convincing they still are. From his biography, I have seen that he died of lung cancer, not in an accident as I might guess, meaning that he has survived to his risky scenes usual in most of his films. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Marinheiro de Encomenda" ("Sailor by Order")

These early Buster Keaton movies are always both fun and charming to watch.

The movie is mostly fun because of its physical humor and charming because of the almost childish innocence that is in Keaton's performance. The movie also has a lot of comedy in its dialog. Surprising for a silent movie. Like often, the movie also further more features a cute little love-story involving Keaton and the young Marion Byron.

The story isn't much special and it's very typical for a '20's silent genre movie. It's however fun and interesting enough to hold your interest throughout but of course the movie is not dependent of it. The concept and its settings provides the movie with a couple of entertaining, silly and also original moments.

Once more Keaton also shows us his skills as a stuntman. He does some extreme dangerous stuff here. Of course stunts in those days were also much more dangerous than now, no matter how often much more spectacular it's looking all. Some of the things he does in this movie are really amazing, with of course the spectacular classic ending as the highlight- and most impressive of them all, when a cyclone hits the town and Keaton manages to run across collapsing buildings without getting hit and without him getting blown away, while also other large object are flying at him.

A great watch.

8/10

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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.