Buster Keaton
Oct. 6th, 2019 10:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shootinglightI picked up a DVD of old 1920's Buster Keaton movies - black & white silent slapstick films - in a charity shop the other week. I don't know why, something about them caught my eye, I guess. It was such an unusual find, after all.
This afternoon, I curled up on my couch with a bottle of wine and watched them. That was not the plan, it was going to be a Star Wars afternoon and I did start with watching A New Hope but... well best-laid plans and all that
I watched Convict 13, The Balloonatic, Three Ages, and Our Hospitality. They're only shorts but they had me absolutely cracking up. Then again, I do like some slapstick - most modern comedies I don't find funny, they're either gross-out or I suffer far too much second-hand embarrassment.
Convict 13 was definitely my favourite of the ones I watched. Where else but in a silent comedy can you see a golfer trying to hit the ball out of a lake while standing on a raft... and then diving in for fish to find out which fish swallowed his golf ball?! Keaton gets it on the third try and gives the fish a spanking after retrieving the ball! Insane stuff, as that's just the first five minutes!
Along comes an escaped convict (crazy things just happen out of the blue in a lot of these old silent comedies) who sees Buster lying the ground, having knocked himself out with a golf ball. The convict switches clothing and now Buster is wearing stripes. Cops notice him (He didn't notice what he was wearing?!) and begin chasing him. Buster winds up back at the jail and, since he's wearing number 13 on his jail outfit, he's scheduled to be hanged the next day. His girlfriend saves him by putting elastic gymnasium rope in place of the noose, so Buster bounces up and down after the trap door operates. Watching all of this are the other inmates who are sitting in bleachers while a vendor sells peanuts and popcorn.
It goes on from there, with a prison riot the next day and Buster and some humongous goon knocking out a bunch of uniformed guards and the other prisoners via some strange methods. It's pure disjointed chaos but it makes for a wild and fun 20-minute film.
I'm kind of itching to find more now, not just Buster Keaton but see what others are still out there. There may be a new obsession brewing but its really interesting seeing the development of movies - from silent to sound, from black and white to colour, from classics to Hollywood Blockbuster.
This afternoon, I curled up on my couch with a bottle of wine and watched them. That was not the plan, it was going to be a Star Wars afternoon and I did start with watching A New Hope but... well best-laid plans and all that
I watched Convict 13, The Balloonatic, Three Ages, and Our Hospitality. They're only shorts but they had me absolutely cracking up. Then again, I do like some slapstick - most modern comedies I don't find funny, they're either gross-out or I suffer far too much second-hand embarrassment.
Convict 13 was definitely my favourite of the ones I watched. Where else but in a silent comedy can you see a golfer trying to hit the ball out of a lake while standing on a raft... and then diving in for fish to find out which fish swallowed his golf ball?! Keaton gets it on the third try and gives the fish a spanking after retrieving the ball! Insane stuff, as that's just the first five minutes!
Along comes an escaped convict (crazy things just happen out of the blue in a lot of these old silent comedies) who sees Buster lying the ground, having knocked himself out with a golf ball. The convict switches clothing and now Buster is wearing stripes. Cops notice him (He didn't notice what he was wearing?!) and begin chasing him. Buster winds up back at the jail and, since he's wearing number 13 on his jail outfit, he's scheduled to be hanged the next day. His girlfriend saves him by putting elastic gymnasium rope in place of the noose, so Buster bounces up and down after the trap door operates. Watching all of this are the other inmates who are sitting in bleachers while a vendor sells peanuts and popcorn.
It goes on from there, with a prison riot the next day and Buster and some humongous goon knocking out a bunch of uniformed guards and the other prisoners via some strange methods. It's pure disjointed chaos but it makes for a wild and fun 20-minute film.
I'm kind of itching to find more now, not just Buster Keaton but see what others are still out there. There may be a new obsession brewing but its really interesting seeing the development of movies - from silent to sound, from black and white to colour, from classics to Hollywood Blockbuster.
