Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Director:

Charles Reisner

Writer:

Carl Harbaugh (story)

Release Date:

20 May 1928 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Comedy | Drama | Family | Romance

Tagline:

The Laugh Special of the Age. See It.

Plot:

The effete son of a cantankerous riverboat captain comes to join his father's crew.

Plot Keywords:

River | Captain | Rescue | Riverboat | Hurricane

Cast

Buster Keaton	...	William Canfield Jr.
Tom McGuire	...	John James King
Ernest Torrence	...	William 'Steamboat Bill' Canfield Sr.
Tom Lewis	...	Tom Carter, first mate
Marion Byron	...	Kitty King (credit only)

Runtime:

71 min | Argentina:73 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Certification:

Australia:G | UK:U | Portugal:M/6 | Sweden:Btl | Spain:T | Argentina:Atp

Filming Locations:

Sacramento River, California, USA

Company:

Buster Keaton Productions

Trivia:

The hat that Buster Keaton quickly removes from his head and hands back to the clerk with a frown is Keaton's own trademark porkpie hat.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: During the final cyclone sequence, a cable pulling down the entire front of a building is clearly visible.

Quotes:

William Canfield Jr.: That must have happened when the dough fell in the tool chest.

Movie Connections:

References The Boob (1926)

Blow

This follows a pattern that Keaton would follow in a few of his most amazing films. The first half would just set up the situation and incidentally give a few mild jokes along the way. The second part is structured around a frantic set of stunts that are both comic and athletic. These must have astonished when they were new; its an odd thing that all the really interesting effects in films of this era were not for science fiction or action, but comedy.

Today, these effects and particularly Keaton's, astonish ever so much more. Jackie Chan is the closest we have now, or recently. Chan knows that when we see something that we know is real: Chan jumping off a helicopter for instance, and when that is done with a comic tone, for some reason we chuckle more deeply.

(Stephen Chow's projects are a twist on this. We know the stunts aren't real, but they are much more extreme, and they deliberately reference other movies.) This collection of stunts has Keaton take a large river steam paddlewheeler, a rig it up to operate the boiler room by ropes from the pilothouse. Keaton's agility is absolutely phenomenal: today such acrobatics would surely be computer generated. Its not obvious that the man is risking his life. But as with his railroad movie, it is obvious that this is a real machine in a real raging river during real serious wind, though the wind might be generated with machines.

This is big stuff, important to watch and real thrill.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.