This is an inferior Buster Keaton feature film. Considering how brilliant Keaton was, and how marvellous many of his feature films are, this one is a serious disappointment. I do not believe it would necessarily have been regarded that way when it came out, however. A lot of sport has flowed under the bridge since then. The film is primarily about Buster trying and failing at every conceivable sport (except football) which was common then at 'college' (the American term for university). Buster plays a bookish student who has contempt for sports but in order to try to win the heart of the girl he loves, tries to become a sportsman. In the days before sport was on television ad nauseam every single day, this would have had much more appeal than it has now. Sport historians of course would find this film fascinating, if there are any sport historians, that is. All the expected things happen: Buster tries the shot-put but cannot lift the shot and falls over under its weight, he tries the high jump but crashes into the rod, he tries the hurdles but knocks them all over, and so on. Considering that this film came between Buster's famous films THE GENERAL (1926) and STEAMBOAT BILL JR. (1928), it is remarkable that it lacks a fraction of the appeal of either of them. The DVD is good quality, with a well-restored print, so there are no quality complaints. The silent era was coming to an end, and what one can say in favour of COLLEGE is that it could never have succeeded at all in the sound era, so if Keaton really wanted to explore sports, it is just as well that he squeezed this film in just in time. It may be that other people will enjoy this film far more than myself, especially if they are fascinated by the subject, and there is no questioning the brilliance of Keaton's comic timing and technique, which are up to their usual standard. He also co-directed the film. Another reviewer has justly observed that this film resembles in theme the excellent film THE FRESHMAN (1925) by Harold Lloyd, which I would say is far more amusing than this one. These days when there are so many teen flicks about, the subject of kids going to 'college' and being 'freshmen' has little novelty, but in the twenties, it was all of great interest, especially to the dazed parents trying to understand their increasingly wild children, an anxiety clearly demonstrated by the film THE WILD PARTY (1929) starring Clara Bow in a film about girls going wild at college. People interested in seeing anything and everything that clever Buster Keaton did can, of course, not afford to miss this major film of his, as long as they are prepared to be bored by parts of it and wonder why he bothered making it.
Review of College
