The Navigator (1924)

Two spoiled rich people find themselves trapped on an empty passenger ship.

Directors:

Donald Crisp, Buster Keaton

Writers:

Clyde Bruckman (story), Joseph A. Mitchell (story),

Stars:

Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Frederick Vroom

1 nomination.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Buster Keaton	...	Rollo Treadway
Kathryn McGuire	...	Betsy O'Brien
Frederick Vroom	...	John O'Brien

Storyline

Rollo decides to marry his sweetheart Betsy and sail to Honolulu. When she rejects him he decides to go alone but boards the wrong ship, the "Navigator" owned by Betsy's father. Unaware of this, Betsy boards the ship to look for her father. whom spies capture before cutting the ship loose. It drifts out to sea with the two socialites each unaware of there being anyone else on board.

---

Plot Keywords:

ship | sea | octopus | 1920s | native | 

---

Genres:

Action | Comedy

---

Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Country:

USA

Release Date:

13 October 1924 (USA)

Also Known As:

A navigátor

Filming Locations:

Lake Tahoe, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$220,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Buster Keaton Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

59 min

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The idea for this film began when Buster Keaton learned of a large passenger ship that was due to be scrapped. Seeing an opportunity, he purchased the ship for a low price and proceeded to build a story around this massive prop.

---

Goofs

Rollo Treadway (Buster Keaton) is supposedly boiling eggs in a large pot, but he grips the edge of the pot, as well as a utensil that's been hanging inside the pot, without burning himself.

---

Quotes

[first lines]
Leader of a small gathering: Gentlemen, the enemy have just purchased the steamship Navigator.
[Walks over to open the double doors, and gestures to a vessel outside]
Leader of a small gathering: There she lies now, and it is our patriotic duty to destroy that ship. We will send her adrift in the fog tonight before the new crew goes aboard. The wind - the tide - and the rocks will do the rest.

---

Connections

Edited into The Golden Age of Buster Keaton (1975)

User Reviews

nothing less than a classic

Buster Keaton never needed anything more than a simple outline to make his typically graceful, inventive comedies, and the entire plot of one of his best remembered features can easily be summed up in less than twenty words: a spoiled young millionaire and his reluctant fiancé find themselves adrift alone on an empty ocean liner.

It takes a little effort to get the couple aboard (with help from a group of histrionic saboteurs) but, once at sea, the minimal scenario allowed Keaton plenty of room to exercise his unique comic genius, with gags ranging from the intimate (battling a recalcitrant deck chair; shuffling a soggy pack of cards) to the sublime (Buster, in a leaking rowboat, attempting to tow the huge drifting liner). As usual, fate and circumstance (and, in this case, a tribe of hungry cannibals) all play a part in Buster's rite of passage from bumbling naïf to competent hero, and (also, as usual) the transformation is often as astonishing as it is sidesplitting.