After testing feature-length waters with THREE AGES/’23, a interrelated trio of shorts set in Pre-Historic, Roman & Modern eras*, Buster Keaton took the plunge into feature-length stories with this variation on the deadly Hatfield & McCoy feud (here McKay & Canfield), with LOL comic gloss added to deadly (and dead earnest) melodrama. An astonishment as debut, it's as near perfect as the American cinema gets. Keaton makes a statement of intent right at the start, with straight Appalachian melodrama (like echt D. W. Griffth or Henry King) in a prologue to set up the cycle-of-hatred backstory before jumping ahead twenty years to the 1830s where Keaton, now a young man, learns the family history before taking a comical ‘carriage’ train-ride down from New York to claim his Southern inheritance. On the way, along with his tagalong dog, Buster meets-cute and falls for a young lady, unaware she’s his ancestral enemy’s daughter. From then on, Keaton’s a walking target to her family, staying alive thru a quirky combination on the rules of Southern Hospitality, his own mental & physical dexterity, and timely help from the natural forces of wind & weather, pluck and pure Keatonian ingenuity. With three generations of Keatons in the cast (Buster Jr in the prologue, Pop as train engineer, wife Natalie Talmadge as object of affection), the film tends to surprise audiences since it’s not all slapstick, stunts and adventure, but a fully rounded story that places those elements naturally in the mix (thrillingly at climaxes), fully integrated in drama, suspense, rounded characterizations and infinite charm. In a new highly successful restoration from Lobster Films, out on KINO with Robert Israel’s fine score, the film is an essential treat.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *You'll also find a reasonably well restored 3 AGES on KINO. Great fun; yet what a filmmaking leap between the two! https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2013/02/three-ages-1923.html
No comments:
Post a Comment