The Making of Buster Keaton - Part Two

... in which we continue our journey through the early career of the silent screen's greatest comic. You can read Part One here.



The Rough House (Roscoe Arbuckle, 1917) was the second collaboration between endlessly-mugging slapstick peddler Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle - whose career was about to bottom out in gutting fashion - and Buster Keaton, a genius newly arrived in Hollywood and yet to premiere his legendary blank-faced persona. There's some funny stuff here - like Arbuckle trying to douse a raging fire by repeatedly filling a teacup with water - but little rhyme or reason as to how the hero behaves. He's essentially a sociopath: attacking people for no reason, jettisoning job opportunities by stroking the staff, and applying a thick coat of butter to a bald man's head. Intriguingly, he also does a very short "dance of the rolls". It lacks the joy and innocence of Chaplin's celebrated routine in The Gold Rush, particularly as there's no dramatic context, but it's interesting to note how silent comedy evolved and observe that some of the most famous set-pieces in cinema (the national anthem sing-off in Casablanca, familiar to anyone who's seen La grande illusion) are half-inched quite shamelessly from earlier works. Buster's contributions here include a few spectacular pratfalls and a bit where he gets stuck on top of a big pole, dressed as a policeman. Following the old "great big fight, barely-related second-reel" template, The Rough House isn't in the same league as Keaton's dizzyingly inventive solo shorts (we'll get to them in due course), but it has a few bright spots and spotlights the supreme physicality that was about to make him a superstar. (2)

The making of Buster Keaton - Part One

Having received The Greatest Box-Set in the World (TM) from my girlfriend, I've embarked on a 32-film journey that is going to change my life for the better. I've seen all of Buster Keaton's 1920s films, but only a handful of those he made before, acting as sideman to Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, the rotund slapstick merchant whose career would soon be destroyed by Hollywood's first major scandal.

So, in order to trace his journey from bit-part molasses victim to the greatest visual comedian the movies have ever seen, I'm watching Buster's early shorts in order, starting with:



The Butcher Boy (Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, 1917) - Not Neil Jordan's transcendent, blackly fascinating 1997 coming-of-age film, but Buster's first appearance on celluloid. He gets his straw boater full of molasses and his foot stuck to the floor of a grocery store, before helping the villain try to kidnap Arbuckle's girl. And for fans of the Great Stone Face, there's a little glimpse of the heroics to come, as he clambers onto some high shop shelves, then casually flings a plate at someone, as well as the chance to see him laugh (it's just after the guy next to him gets a faceful of flour). The film as a whole is a bit inconsistent - with an over-reliance on footage of Arbuckle skipping about dressed as a girl - but not bad. (2.5)

Next-up, he said with unerring prescience: The Rough House.