Parlor, Bedroom and Bath

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.

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.

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.

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.