Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Friday, July 8, 2011

HARD LUCK (1921)

Buster Keaton’s independently produced two-reel ‘shorts’ (1920-1923) come in three basic varieties:

  • Compact Story Films
  • Boxes Within Boxes Within Boxes
  • Dadaist Funhouse Follies.

Today’s fans, used to his classic features, tend to prefer Compact Stories like ONE WEEK/’20. Academics & auteurists, the sort who’d rate SHERLOCK, JR/’24 over THE GENERAL/’27, go for Boxes Within Boxes. Say, THE BOAT/’21. But Buster didn’t work for arty types or ponder his future rep, he was out for laughs. And he got his biggest laughs with Funhouse Follies pics; crazy capers & impossible gags strung over two-reels like wash on a clothesline. But with little narrative pull or brain-teasing design to carry us along, the gags have all got to hit or today’s audience tunes out. HARD LUCK pulls it off. Buster begins at the bottom, starting off with a few tries at suicide; but soon he’s nabbed a job as an explorer for a zoo! Still, life holds many a tough decision, fish or roll cigarettes? Both? And there's that damsel-in-distress you want to protect . . . and impress with a death-defying dive from the high platform. This last gag, long lost & just recently restored, earned Buster the single biggest reaction he ever got. What a thrill to finally see it!, even in rough shape. And what a piece of stunt work! KINO re-releases their Keaton pics every few years (now on BLU-RAY), but it’s also out on a 2001 disc called KEATON PLUS.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: KEATON PLUS includes two shorts Buster made at Educational Pictures in the ‘30s, ALLEY OOP/’35 and JAIL BAIT/’37. These films have a terrible rep, but they turn out to be quite watchable, especially JAIL BAIT which unexpectedly shows Buster working up to speed. Just don’t expect THE GENERAL . . . or even SPITE MARRIAGE. Demoted to Hollywood’s Poverty Row, Buster manages more laughs (with a fraction of the time & budget) than he got in his M-G-M Talkies.

No comments: