title: Keaton's Silent Shorts : Beyond the Laughter author: Oldham, Gabriella. publisher: Southern Illinois University Press isbn10 asin: print isbn13: 9780809319510 ebook isbn13: 9780585108063 language: English subject Keaton, Buster,--1895-1966--Criticism and interpretation. publication date: 1996 lcc: PN2287.K4O48 1996eb ddc: 791.43/028/092 subject: Keaton, Buster,--1895-1966--Criticism and interpretation. 1
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Page iii Keaton's Silent Shorts Beyond the Laughter Gabriella Oldham Southern Illinois University Press Carbondale and Edwardsville 4
Copyright 1996 by the Board of Trustees, Southern Illinois University All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Edited by Ruth Kissell Design and production by New Leaf Studio 99 98 97 96 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Oldham, Gabriella. Keaton's silent shorts: beyond the laughter / Gabriella Oldham. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Keaton, Buster, 1895-1966Criticism and interpretation. I. Title. PN2287.K4048 1996 791.43'028'092dc20 95-13970 ISBN 0-8093-1951-9 CIP ISBN 0-8093-1952-7 (pbk.) Page iv The illustrations used in this book are from the collection of the author and are reproductions of film and publicity stills originally copyrighted by Metro Pictures. The author gratefully acknowledges the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Los Angeles) and the Museum of Modern Art/Film Stills Archive (New York) for their assistance in providing the duplicates of the stills from which the illustrations were reproduced. Frontispiece: Cops (March 1922). Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. 5
Page v To my Italian grandmother, whose favorite actor was Boo-stair Kay-ah-tohn. To my Italian mother, whose strength and beauty come from the storms of Life. Boo-stair would be proud. Tutto arriva a chi sa aspettare. 6
Page vii Contents Illustrations ix Chapter 1. Introduction 1 Chapter 2. One Week (September 1920) 12 Chapter 3. Convict 13 (October 1920) 26 Chapter 4. The Scarecrow (December 1920) 43 Chapter 5. Neighbors (January 1921) 56 Chapter 6. The Haunted House (February 1921) 69 Chapter 7. Hard Luck (March 1921) 82 Chapter 8. The High Sign (April 1921) 93 Chapter 9. The Goat (May 1921) 108 Chapter 10. The Playhouse (January 1922) 125 Chapter 11. The Boat (November 1921) 146 Chapter 12. The Paleface (January 1922) 166 Chapter 13. Cops (March 1922) 187 Chapter 14. My Wife's Relations (May 1922) 209 Chapter 15. The Blacksmith (July 1922) 234 Chapter 16. The Frozen North (August 1922) 250 Chapter 17. Daydreams (September 1922) 268 Chapter 18. The Electric House (October 1922) 290 Chapter 19. The Balloonatic (January 1923) 312 Chapter 20. The Love Nest (March 1923) 332 Chapter 21. Conclusion 357 Notes 365 7
Selected Bibliography 377 Index 386 8
Page ix Illustrations Frontispiece Cops "The Three Keatons" (Buster Keaton with his parents) 1 One Week (September 1920) 12 Convict 13 (October 1920) 26 The Scarecrow (December 1920) 43 Neighbors (January 1921) 56 The Haunted House (February 1921) 69 Hard Luck (March 1921) 82 The High Sign (April 1921) 93 The Goat (May 1921) 108 The Playhouse (January 1922) 125 The Boat (November 1921) 146 The Paleface (January 1922) 166 Cops (March 1922) 187 My Wife's Relations (May 1922) 209 The Blacksmith (July 1922) 234 The Frozen North (August 1922) 250 Daydreams (September 1922) 268 The Electric House (October 1922) 290 The Balloonatic (January 1923) 312 The Love Nest (March 1923) 332 Detail from Cops (March 1922) 357 9
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Page 1 Chapter 1 Introduction Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art/Film Stills Archive It started with King Kong. That film marked my first visit to a New York revival house and the end of watching classic films on television. It was also the moment I picked up a flyer in the lobby advertising a silent film comedy series at the Elgin Theater. 11
Page 2 I recognized the name of the star comedian but couldn't quite place the "stone face." That face drew me to the entire Elgin program and into a world of film I barely knew. On that fateful day, King Kong introduced me to Buster Keaton, and this latter giant of the screen has overwhelmed me ever since. This book is both a tribute to the brilliance of the nineteen independent short comedies of Buster Keaton and a lengthy response to those who ask, "Why do you like him?" My admiration for Buster Keaton was so instantaneous that I never considered the why's. I hope to answer that question and do justice to the subtly forceful and visually ingenious comedy of Buster Keaton. In 1949, film critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist James Agee, in his essay entitled "Comedy's Greatest Era," lamented the "lost negatives" of the short Keaton films. He felt that "for plain hard laughter'' they even surpassed Keaton's longer work. 1 Since their rediscovery and re-release over the following three decades through the work of Raymond Rohauer, many of Keaton's short films have been acknowledged by critics for their sophisticated visual comedy and filmmaking. However, a full critical study of the nineteen independent short silent comedies from 1920 to 1923, with Keaton as director, writer, and star, is overdue. Keaton's less successful shorts (My Wife's Relations, The Haunted House, The Electric Home) are usually mentioned in passing or dismissed in favor of such favorites as One Week, Cops, and The Boat. In addition, the short come-dies as a whole have been regarded as a springboard for discourses on Keaton's ten feature-length masterpieces. Keaton's silent film comedy developed from his impressive physical agility, his inventive manipulation of the camera, his eye for intriguing composition, and his instinct for "getting laughs." These talents pervade the nineteen short comedies and lay solid groundwork for Keaton's features. His favorite themes, plots, gags, characters, cinematic techniques, and relationships (Buster-Machine, Buster-Woman, Buster-Self, Buster-World) are rooted in the shorts and grow, evolve, transform. By focusing on each short film, we can see Keaton's style and artistry fuse. We can also enjoy each short as a condensation of the dynamic qualities Keaton worked more fully and leisurely in his features. As we consider the short films for their strengths and weaknesses, for their interwoven threads, we see the genesis of Buster the persona and 12
Page 3 Keaton the film director. Divorced from their full-length offspring, these short films hit us with the rich essence of the Buster Keaton character in his world. He gives us a comedy that is visually beautiful, robustly funny, and strangely unsettling. Vaudeville audiences were captivated by the serendipitous stage appearance of a nine-month-old boy crawling to his father during a monologue. 2 Joe Keaton knew success when he saw it; two years later he introduced his son, Joseph Francis ''Buster" Keaton, into the family act "The Three Keatons," along with mother Myra. Reputedly one of the roughest in the business, the act toured the United States and England on major vaudeville circuits. In a usual routine, Buster disturbed his father's performance, and Joe highkicked Buster into the backdrop, orchestra and/or audience, who enthusiastically shouted for more. After twenty-one years in vaudeville, Buster Keaton needed to move on. He was offered a solo role in the Shubert Brothers' Passing Shows of 1917. As he walked the streets of New York City pondering a routine, Keaton met a vaudeville colleague who urged him to visit the Talmadge movie studios on East 48th Street. A new slapstick comedy short filming there was The Butcher Boy, starring the popular baby face comedian and director Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Keaton was intrigued with the camera, and Arbuckle willingly introduced him to it. Destiny had walked in with Keaton that day: the former vaudevillian joined Arbuckle in a small but outstanding role in The Butcher Boy, his screen debut and the start of a lifelong career. The two-reeler was favorably reviewed in the trade paper Moving Picture World, with a special mention for the newcomer: "Buster Keaton does some excellent comedy falls."3 Keaton stayed with Arbuckle, became his assistant director on fifteen short films from 1917 to 1920, and remained his friend throughout the rapemurder trial that shattered Arbuckle's career in 1921. When Keaton entered comedy film in 1917, Arbuckle was a top comedian, rival to Charlie Chaplin. Within three years, Arbuckle moved into feature comedies, and Keaton graduated to independent stardom in what would be nineteen silent two-feelers, produced by Joseph M. Schenck at the Buster Keaton Studio in Los Angeles. While working on his first short, One Week (1920), Keaton also starred as a "poor little rich boy" in the Metro Productions feature The Saphead, a film adaptation of a contemporary Broadway play called The Lamb with Douglas Fairbanks 13
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Page 4 Sr. Through the shorts, however, the Buster character quickly took shape. From his debut with Arbuckle, Buster was identified by a porkpie hat, pale deadpan expression, daring physical agility, and underplayed moral resilience in outrageous situations. Eventually, Keaton directed, wrote, and starred in ten independently produced features between 1923 and 1928. Through these, his position as a king of silent screen comedy, in the company of Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Harry Langdon, was assured. Ironically, Keaton's brilliance as a master clown was only acknowledged in Agee's article more than two decades after his last independent silent feature. His pictures had garnered mixed reviews, including The General (1927), now considered his most exquisite film and rated in a 1977 American Film Institute poll as one of the fifty best American films of all time. 4 Yet at its release, the New York Times called it "by no means as good as Mr. Keaton's previous efforts"; the Herald Tribune, "long and tediousthe least funny thing Buster Keaton has ever done."5 A relatively positive review in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle offered an insightful view of the more intellectual aspect of Keaton's comedy: a "financial faux pas, perhaps" but "a comedy for the exclusive enjoyment of the matured senses.''6 On the other hand, the Daily Mirror advised Keaton to "pull yourself together.7 Meanwhile, fan magazines of the 1920s dug for details of Keaton's pastimes, marriage, divorce, and "philosophy'' of comedy"what makes the public laugh."8 For all of Hollywood's ferreting, Keaton remained intensely private: a sphinx who posed questions yet answered them with a knowing silence. Keaton was more at home with the serious business of comedy than with the frivolous glitter of Hollywood. He extended a slapstick stereotype into an introspective character teetering on a plank over a sea of emotions. He strayed into the gentle terrain of Chaplin's tramp figure but bailed out before his comedy became too sentimental. His daredevil acts paralleled Harold Lloyd's feats, but his reactions to physical challenges were incomparably reflective. He mirrored the innocence of Harry Langdon but never regressed to a helpless babe. Keaton also championed the camera as a vital component of comedy. With the camera, he moved the audience into what he saw as the best perspective. For someone who loved inventions as Keaton did, the camera was the perfect toy. In 1928, Joseph M. Schenck, Keaton's producer, financial adviser, and brother-in-law, urged him to join Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Although uncertain, 15
he agreed, even over the warnings of Chaplin and Lloyd to remain 16
Page 5 independent. As the silent era faded, Keaton starred in two MGM features, The Cameraman (1928) and Spite Marriage (1929), which evoked the genius of his independent work. But as they entered the talking 1930s, Keaton and MGM proved incompatible. MGM mass-produced stars and films within strict schedules and budgets. Keaton craved a familial cast and crew with informal budgets and shooting schedules, even improvising a baseball game if the mood hit him. A liberal producer like Schenck was not to be found at MGM. At this time as well, Keaton's marriage with Natalie Talmadge (sister of screen stars Norma and Constance) was disintegrating. His wrecked home life and loss of creative freedom led Keaton into alcoholism. While most of the ten MGM films he starred or costarred in between 1929 and 1933 were popular at the box office, Keaton's unique talents were squandered by poor scripts and increased drinking. One critic, Pare Lorentz, commented on Keaton's first "talkie," Free and Easy (1930): "He is no longer the enigmatic personality, the persevering, misunderstood stranger with a knack for falling on his ear. He is a hoofer, and there are thousands who can do his tricks just as well.... Keaton would have been worth twice as much as a comedian if, in a day of talking pictures, he had remained silent." 9 In addition to an unfortunate second marriage, Keaton's contract was terminated by MGM in 1933. Considered unemployable by the major studios, Keaton could only find jobs in unchallenging projects at small film companies such as Educational, for which he made sixteen shorts between 1933 and 1937. After a year in a psychiatric clinic, old friends at MGM eased Keaton into work as a behind-the-scenes, usually uncredited, gag-writer for comedies starring Clark Gable, the Marx Brothers, and Red Skelton. Although acknowledged in a 1944 Colliers article as "Hollywood's No. 1 Gagman" and "Pie-Pitching Champion of the World," the only tribute to Keaton's silent film career was capsulized in a vague reference: "He made a series of comedies that are still remembered.'' Such articles kept Keaton's name in print but implied that he was a Hollywood has-been.10 Even though he worked, Keaton was becoming certain of his own obscurity, for in 1937 he was told that "a failure in the cooling system of the vaults where the negatives of all his silent films had been stored had resulted in their total destruction." As Dardis writes, "Except for the films that he had personally retained for his own collection, Buster believed for the next decade that most of his best work had perished."11 17
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Page 6 Then the miracle. The magical device that Keaton sometimes used in his silent comedies, the "deus ex machina" solving the hero's problems, descended into Keaton's troubled life. James Agee's article in 1949 reawakened readers to the legacy of the silent movies. Agee recaptured the madness and methods that produced the great laugh-films from 1912 to 1930, naming many forgotten clowns and designating four "most eminent masters" or "kings" of comedy. 12 In discussing Keaton, Agee ranked his face ''with Lincoln's as an early American archetype... haunting, handsome, almost beautiful, yet... irreducibly funny."13 In describing Keaton's comedy, Agee used vivid phrases to capture its essence: "disturbing tension and grandeur to the foolishness"; ''a freezing whisper not of pathos but of melancholia"; "a fine still and sometimes dreamlike beauty."14 By 1949, Keaton was struggling to reassert himself in his work; Agee noted that "he gallantly and correctly refuses to regard himself as 'retired.'"15 Unfortunately, Agee wrote without reviewing all of Keaton's films, particularly his shorts, but his reexamination of Keaton's genius boosted his image in the public eye. Keaton by now had settled into a new life. Having overcome alcoholism and finding a secure third marriage with Eleanor Norris, Keaton made cameo appearances in Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Limelight (1952), where with Chaplin he gave an uproarious performance that echoed his best silent routines. Paramount attempted to rekindle public enthusiasm with a bio-pic, The Buster Keaton Story (1957), starring Donald O'Connor, for which Keaton was hired as technical director. The effort was a disappointing shadow of Keaton's life and work. In 1954, Keaton approached Raymond Rohauer, distributor and archivist of "lost" films, at his Society of Cinema Arts theater in Los Angeles. As Rohauer recalled: [Keaton] said he had a number of prints of his films and knew they had to be destroyed, since the nitrate film was badly decomposed. He knew they had some value, but was equally concerned because they were taking up space in his garage!... The following day, I went to Keaton's house. There were original prints of... Sherlock Jr., Go West, Steamboat Bill Jr., College, and some of his best two-reel shorts, such as The Boat and The Playhouse... and true enough, nitrate prints in a deplorable state. Keaton, living in obviously reduced circumstances, seemed defeated. The films seemed almost an embarrassing reminder of his 19
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