Earlier on I mentioned that I would be discussing many genre's of film not just Australian Film, this is my first post away from Australian Film and I have decided to discuss a Short Film that I rate as one of my all time favourites. Buster Keaton's The Boat.
Last year I watched "The General", Keaton's acknowledged masterpiece and was completely entranced by it, I had previously watched some silent movies and had not really gotten into them. But I found The General very different and still rate it as one my favourite movies. After watching The General I had to see more Keaton so I did the BIG plunge and purchased The Art of Buster Keaton (Released by Kino), every single short and feature film that Keaton released whilst he had he own studio, oh an one in which he was merely an actor "The Saphead". In amongst this wonderful set, is The Boat. a short first released in November 1921.
The premise is that Keaton having built a boat "The Damfino" decides that he wants to take his wife (Sybil Seely) and his two little "pork pie hatted"children for a nice little river cruise. The result is that he demolishes the house, drowns the car, sinks his boat and nearly kills his entire family.
This is one funny film, I love the scene where he and his children are trying to eat the pancakes that his wife has made, watch the young actors just immitate his every move. Then there is the scene where Keaton loses his son in the funnel and the resulting rescue attempts are brilliant. The scene where the boat having drifted into the ocean is battered by a storm and Buster calls for help.
"Who are you? the operator asks
"Damfino" replys Keaton
"well neither do I" replies the operator once again
I was just thinking of two more little bits of business that are brilliant, Keaton the Captain going down with his ship and his family in the bathtub (it's a long story) watching and slowly the Pork Pie Hat drifts by, only for Keaton to still be connected to it and then when one of the little boys tells dad that he is thirsty, on comes the bathtub tap and out comes some drinkable water. There is also some wonderful "engineering" on Keaton's boat that allows him to fit under low bridges, this is another Keaton touch, he just loved inventing gadgets and he used it throughout his career, and in his private life too, he built a train that delivered food to guests in his house in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles.
Keaton looks great in this movie too, and his incredible athletic skills are on show for all too see, only Keaton could make the rescue of his child from the ocean so funny. Buster says in his autobiography "My Wonderful World Of Slapstick"that the crew liked to see the boss get wet in each of his movies, it was a little superstition of theirs that it meant a great short or movie. Well Buster gets wet a lot in this short and it is in my opinion one of the funniest shorts he made.
If you want to know more about Keaton follow this link and become like me a proud card carrying member of The Damfinos.
http://www.busterkeaton.com./
And if you want to purchase some Keaton MK2/ Madman have just released The General, College, Steamboat Bill Jnr and Three Ages on DVD in Australia, sadly none of these have The Boat on them, you have to import that at the moment, I got mine from Amazon but be prepared it's not cheap, perhaps wait to see if Madman/MK2 release more Keaton in Australia.
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