STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. (1928)

Buster Keaton’s last independent feature* is built on the double frame of feuding families (rival steamboat owners trying to stop a romance between the rich man’s daughter and Buster, the poor man’s son) and the budding relationship between pint-sized Buster and the father he never knew, jumbo-sized Ernest Torrence, the struggling steamboat man. The comedy comes in a series of gently hilarious set pieces, stand-outs include a haberdashery visit and a jail sequence where Buster demonstrates unexpected baking skills. But the film is legend for its climax, a one-reel astonishment as Buster, largely alone, confronts a hurricane as it surrealistically blasts thru town, yet still manages to save the day: both fathers, his girl and one steamboat. Complete with jaw-dropping effects that haven’t dated a bit because . . . well, because they really aren’t ‘effects,’ Buster is really doing everything. Compared to Buster’s ‘props’ and wind machines, CGI effects look bogus. And Buster goes even deeper, diving into his real-life past as a child-star vaudeville headliner when he enters a theater for a few memory turns before it self-destructs around him. (Look for his actual dad, Joseph Keaton, as a barber early in the film. Buster's ‘dive’ into the stage canvas backdrop a variation on his dad tossing him into it when he was a child as part of the act.) Buster’s feel for underlying psychology as extraordinary as it is inexplicable, like his preternatural gift for gags, stunting, narrative structure & directing technique. For nitpickers, the girl in the pic, debuting Marion Byron, doesn’t quite rate, but it’s hard to find anything else to beef about. And what a superb new score Tim Brock brings to the latest KINO DVD release, he really ‘gets’ the comedy, pointing up gags yet knowing when to be still. Essential viewing.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Buster’s last independent film, but not his last masterpiece which would be his first under contract at M-G-M, THE CAMERAMAN/’28. (With one of his best co-stars in Marceline Day.) After that, the decline was swift, accelerated by The Talkies, his drinking and (oddly enough) the financial success of those slow moving/slow-witted early sound films. Hard for Buster to argue with a slate of features that consistently outperformed his best work, like the money losing STEAMBOAT BILL, JR.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Attention to your disc player since this ‘Academy Ratio’ film (4:3) is mastered on the KINO release to play correctly in the 16x9/‘Enhanced for WideScreen’ setting.