Most casual boat owners will agree, the two happiest days of the endeavor are the day you buy your vessel and the day you rid yourself of it. Buster Keaton essentially accomplishes both in the same twenty-four hours in this nautically-themed short. Having constructed a live-in yacht in the luxury of his basement-level garage, he hazardously takes it to sea and immediately undergoes a series of worst-case scenarios on the water before finally, unceremoniously, disposing of the whole accursed affair.
As usual, the fun lies in watching Keaton exaggerate relatable life experiences, encountering a common irritant and completely failing to contain the problem before it all blows up in his face. It's a trait that's hereditary, evidently, as this time he's joined by a wife and two young kids that do him no favors, falling overboard or starting metaphorical fires as mindlessly as Keaton himself nails a hole in the hull to hang a framed painting.
By most accounts, this short was originally conceived as the third act of a true feature-length comedy, combining the turbulent courtship of The Scarecrow with the post-nuptial home ownership disaster of One Week, before concluding with this mid-life cataclysm. Those grander aspirations never came to pass, and by comparison to the others,The Boat feels like the thinnest act. The opening volleys are inventive and hilarious, great examples of Keaton's knack for ingenuity in both comedy and engineering, but the plot soon overstays its welcome and the at-sea bits tend to feel a bit dreary and over-long. Entertaining, at least, but not one of the silent comic's very best.
