Buster Keaton
I saw Buster Keaton's The General on TV when I was a kid, probably in a butchered version; broadcasters in the 1960s were not kind to silent films. But some of Keaton's masterworks reappeared in theaters in the 1970s, in Raymond Rohauer's wonderful prints, and I saw as many as I could. I listed Sherlock Jr. as my favorite film if anyone asked and named my cat Buster (jocularly, Buster Kitten), although he was as clumsy as his namesake was deft. The San Francisco Silent Film Festival showed a lot of Keaton in 1995, including a dozen shorts I had not seen before. My list of films I have seen in theaters since 1982 includes 20 separate Keaton items as of November 2011.
When Keaton was the featured star of the month on Turner Classic Movies in October 2011, I recorded everything they showed: 46 items, about 33 hours of material, including 5 early two-reel shorts Keaton made with Roscoe Arbuckle (1917-1919), all 19 of the Buster Keaton Productions shorts (1920-1923), all 13 of Keaton's silent features (1920-1929), 8 talkies (starting 1929), and a documentary about Keaton's MGM years. In November 2011, I resolved to watch all this material (plus three later films) in chronological order and to reread my half-dozen books on Keaton, while recording my impressions for this page. It's a work in progress; to date I've written 5 reviews.
Online references:
- Keaton's Wikipedia biography
- Keaton's Wikipedia filmography
-
Life magazine issue of 9/05/1949 at Google Books.
[James Agee's essay Comedy's Greatest Era starts on page 70, Keaton section starts on page 82.]
My Keaton books:
-
Agee, James:
Agee on Film.
Beacon, Boston, 1958.
[Essay Comedy's Greatest Era, originally published in Life magazine on 9/05/1949; see online version above.] - Benayoun, Robert: The Look of Buster Keaton. St. Martin's, New York, 1981.
-
Brownlow, Kevin:
The Parade's Gone By....
Ballantine, New York, 1968.
[Chapter 43 (pp. 543 ff.): Buster Keaton.] - Dardis, Tom: Keaton: The Man Who Wouldn't Lie Down. Scribner's, New York, 1979.
- Kerr, Walter: The Silent Clowns. Knopf, New York, 1975.
-
McGregor, Dan:
Buster: The Early Years.
Eclipse, New York, 1982.
[Buster Keaton Film Festival pamphlet.] - Robinson, David: Buster Keaton. Indiana, Bloomington, 1969.
-
Sarris, Andrew:
The American Cinema.
Dutton, New York, 1968.
[Keaton: pp. 61-63.]
Click on a heading below to sort the list accordingly. Click on a review date to show the review. Click here to show all the reviews.
| Title | Year | Director | Stars | Time | Silent | Short | Reviewed | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Li'l Abner | 1940 | Albert S. Rogell | Jeff York Martha O'Drisoll |
78 | ||||
| What - No Beer? | 1933 | Edward Sedgwick | Buster Keaton Jimmy Durante |
65 | ||||
| Sunset Boulevard | 1950 | Billy Wilder | William Holden Gloria Swanson |
110 | ||||
| Limelight | 1952 | Charles Chaplin | Charles Chaplin Claire Bloom |
137 | ||||
| She Went to the Races | 1945 | Willis Goldbeck | James Craig Ava Gardner Buster Keaton |
86 | ||||
| So Funny it Hurt | 2004 | Kevin Brownlow Christopher Bird |
Buster Keaton | 38 | documentary; color | |||
| The Sidewalks of New York | 1931 | Jules White | Buster Keaton Anita Page |
74 | ||||
| Speak Easily | 1932 | Edward Sedgwick | Buster Keaton Jimmy Durante Ruth Selwyn |
81 | ||||
| Doughboys | 1930 | Edward Sedgwick | Buster Keaton | 80 | ||||
| Parlor, Bedroom and Bath | 1931 | Edward Sedgwick | Buster Keaton Charlotte Greenwood Reginald Denny |
73 | ||||
| Free and Easy | 1930 | Edward Sedgwick | Buster Keaton | 93 | ||||
| The Passionate Plumber | 1932 | Edward Sedgwick | Buster Keaton Jimmy Durante |
74 | ||||
| The Scarecrow | 1920 | Edward F. Cline Buster Keaton |
Buster Keaton | 19 | silent | short | ||
| The Play House | 1921 | Buster Keaton | Buster Keaton | 22 | silent | short | ||
| Our Hospitality | 1923 | Buster Keaton | Buster Keaton Natalie Talmadge |
73 | silent | |||
| Neighbors | 1921 | Edward F. Cline Buster Keaton |
Buster Keaton | 18 | silent | short | ||
| My Wife's Relations | 1922 | Buster Keaton | Buster Keaton | 30 | silent | short | ||
| The Boat | 1921 | Edward F. Cline Buster Keaton |
Buster Keaton | 26 | silent | short | ||
| The Frozen North | 1922 | Edward F. Cline Buster Keaton |
Buster Keaton | 17 | silent | short | ||
| The Electric House | 1922 | Edward F. Cline Buster Keaton |
Buster Keaton | 19 | silent | short | ||
| Day Dreams | 1922 | Edward F. Cline Buster Keaton |
Buster Keaton | 18 | silent | short | ||
| Cops | 1922 | Buster Keaton | Buster Keaton Virginia Fox |
19 | silent | short | ||
| Convict 13 | 1920 | Edward F. Cline Buster Keaton |
Buster Keaton | 20 | silent | short | ||
| Steamboat Bill Jr. | 1928 | Charles F. Reisner | Buster Keaton | 69 | silent | |||
| The Garage | 1920 | Roscoe Arbuckle | Roscoe Arbuckle Buster Keaton |
25 | silent | short | 12/27/11 | |
| The Love Nest | 1923 | Edward F. Cline Buster Keaton |
Buster Keaton Virginia Fox |
20 | silent | short | ||
| The General | 1927 | Buster Keaton Clyde Bruckman |
Buster Keaton Marion Mack |
75 | silent | |||
| The Navigator | 1924 | Donald Crisp Buster Keaton |
Buster Keaton Kathryn McGuire |
60 | silent | |||
| The Goat | 1921 | Buster Keaton Malcolm St. Clair |
Buster Keaton | 27 | silent | short | ||
| One Week | 1920 | Edward F. Cline Buster Keaton |
Buster Keaton | 25 | silent | short | ||
| Good Night, Nurse | 1918 | Roscoe Arbuckle | Roscoe Arbuckle Buster Keaton |
19 | silent | short | 11/10/11 | |
| The Paleface | 1922 | Buster Keaton | Buster Keaton | 21 | silent | short | ||
| Go West | 1925 | Buster Keaton | Buster Keaton | 69 | silent | |||
| Hard Luck | 1921 | Edward F. Cline Buster Keaton |
Buster Keaton | 22 | silent | short | ||
| Sherlock Jr. | 1924 | Buster Keaton | Buster Keaton Kathryn McGuire |
44 | silent | |||
| The Saphead | 1920 | Herbert Blaché | Buster Keaton | 77 | silent | |||
| College | 1927 | James W. Horne | Buster Keaton | 65 | silent | |||
| Seven Chances | 1925 | Buster Keaton | Buster Keaton | 56 | silent | |||
| Coney Island | 1917 | Roscoe Arbuckle | Roscoe Arbuckle Buster Keaton Al St. John |
26 | silent | short | 11/06/11 | |
| The Haunted House | 1921 | Edward F. Cline Buster Keaton |
Buster Keaton | 21 | silent | short | ||
| The Cameraman | 1928 | Edward Sedgwick | Buster Keaton | 76 | silent | |||
| The High Sign | 1921 | Edward F. Cline Buster Keaton |
Buster Keaton | 21 | silent | short | ||
| The Three Ages | 1923 | Buster Keaton | Buster Keaton Wallace Beery |
63 | silent | |||
| Spite Marriage | 1929 | Edward Sedgwick | Buster Keaton | 76 | silent | |||
| The Bell Boy | 1918 | Roscoe Arbuckle | Roscoe Arbuckle Buster Keaton Al St. John |
20 | silent | short | 11/07/11 | |
| The Balloonatic | 1923 | Edward F. Cline Buster Keaton |
Buster Keaton | 27 | silent | short | ||
| The Blacksmith | 1922 | Buster Keaton | Buster Keaton | 21 | silent | short | ||
| Back Stage | 1919 | Roscoe Arbuckle | Roscoe Arbuckle Buster Keaton |
17 | silent | short | 11/11/11 | |
| Battling Butler | 1926 | Buster Keaton | Buster Keaton | 61 | silent |
