THE CAMERAMAN (1928)

Just as hardcore Marx Bros. fans don’t fully appreciate their initial success moving from Paramount to M-G-M for A NIGHT AT THE OPERA/’35, so too Buster Keaton cultists on his move from independent production to the M-G-M maw.  But while both were progressively tamed into shadows of themselves (Keaton in six years; the Marxes in seven), their wings had yet to be clipped in these first efforts, comic masters tweaked not flattened by the ‘good taste’ and lack of comic sensibility of studio production chief Irving Thalberg.  Particularly so in Keaton’s case where his eccentric comic stamp remains largely intact, if in a conventional boy/girl setting.*  (COLLEGE/’27, his most Harold Lloyd-like vehicle, holds to similar pattern.)   Here, Keaton’s street photographer falls hard for a secretary at M-G-M’s newsreel outlet, trades his tin-type equipment for a pawn-shop motion picture camera and spends the rest of the film following the girl (an excellent Marceline Day) and hunting up newsworthy subjects.  Each episode integrating narrative movement, thrills and laughs.  Exceptions include a break for Buster to play an inning of baseball at Yankee Stadium all by himself, and an improvised one-shot/one-take changing room bit as Buster and film Unit Manager Edward Brophy (spontaneously raised by Buster into a perfect comic foil) try changing into bathing suits in a single tiny cubical.  (Look fast to check out Buster’s amazing gymnastic physique.)  But everything in here is a standout: answering the phone an ingenious technical gag; a large public pool date with Day an entire comic universe for Buster to milk for laughs; a Chinatown Tong War where Buster at work turns a construction scaffolding into a natural camera crane and a ridiculously dangerous slapstick gag.  Helped by the amazing ‘Jocko,’ a capuchin monkey/assistant.*  Keaton makes impossible physical gags look so easy, you hardly realize the level of accomplishment involved.  Much like this intensely funny, sweet-natured, touching and endearing film.  (Look for the Criterion 2020 edition.)

DOUBLE-BILL:  *‘Jocko’ the Monkey fresh off his other classic film role, playing against (who else?) Harold Lloyd in THE KID BROTHER/’27, Lloyd’s most Keatonian (and best) film.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *That slight ‘flattening’ makes THE CAMERAMAN a particularly good entry point into Keaton.  (Same for the Marx Bros. and NIGHT AT THE OPERA.)