Steamboat Bill, Jr. was the first Keaton film I saw in a theater. I'd seen all of his silent films on video and thought nothing could increase my admiration for them, but the reaction of the packed house at New York's Film Forum blew me away. The audience roared with almost uninterrupted laughter, breaking into spontaneous applause whenever Buster did something particularly clever or heroic. This experience confirmed for me that Steamboat Bill, Jr. belongs with Keaton's masterpieces, and it might be his funniest feature film. From the low-key opening to the spectacular finale, not a moment is wasted.
Like much of Keaton's best work, this is a piece of Americana, set in the fictional Mississippi town of River Junction. Steamboat Bill (Ernest Torrence) is a towering, crusty captain of a battered old boat, struggling to survive the competition from a "floating palace" owned by J.J. King, the richest man in town. Bill is expecting a visit from his son, whom he hasn't seen since infancy, and who has been in college in the East. "I bet he's taller'n me!" he crows, and we think: uh-oh. Sure enough, when Buster appears, not only is he petite, he's kitted out with a striped blazer and polka-dot tie, a beret, a ukulele, and a ludicrous little moustache dabbed on his lip. Their reunion is something less than joyful. Young Willie is thrilled to find that his girlfriend from Boston is also in townunfortunately, she's King's daughter. Romeo and Juliet, anyone?
Craggy Ernest Torrence, who specialized in hissable villains, is a superb foil for Buster, serving as both the film's "heavy" and as the object of Buster's efforts to earn approval. At the other end of the height scale is tiny, vivacious Marion Byron, just sixteen at the time, and an effective love interest. The first half of the film follows the clash between gruff, manly father and effete son. Willie is quickly relieved of his moustache and college duds. In one highlight, he tries on an array of hats, using the camera as a mirror and showing off an equally diverse array of subtle facial expressions, culminating in comic horror when Buster's trademark porkpie hat is placed on his head. Willie's idea of "work clothes for the boat" is a dashing naval uniform; while strutting on deck he trips, stumbles and collides with everything possiblewatch for one of Buster's greatest pratfalls when a coil of rope is pulled from under him and he dives forward and spins around on the back of his neck. After he sneaks out at night to visit King's daughter, his enraged father gives him a ticket back to Boston. But before Willie can leave, his father is arrested following an altercation with King, and Junior vows to get Senior out of jail.
A storm is brewing when Willie arrives at the jail, carrying a loaf of bread for his father. Bill wants nothing to do with his son, whose attempts to convey that there are tools hidden in the loaf, without letting the jailer catch on, culminate in a brilliant little pantomime in which Buster, with just his eyes and his fingers, acts out a prison-break. Finally the tools fall out of the soggy bread and clatter to the floor, prompting the movie's funniest title card. Willie looks at them with innocent surprise and says: "That must have happened when the dough fell in the tool box."
In the end, Senior remains in jail while Junior winds up in the hospital. The storm has by now become a cyclone, and thus begins the incomparable finale. When the entire hospital building is ripped from its foundations, Willie ventures dazed into the storm. The wind is so strong that he leans at a 45 degree angle when he tries vainly to walk into it. Houses collapse into splinters. In a haunting scene, Willie takes refuge in a half-ruined theater, where he encounters ghosts of Buster's vaudeville childhood. The whole cyclone sequence is unsurpassed in its surreal and violent beauty. Finally Willie returns to the boat and manages to pilot it himself, vaulting up and down the decks like Douglas Fairbanks and more than proving his manly worth as he comes to the rescue of the other characters.
During the making of Steamboat Bill, Jr., Buster's producer Joseph Schenck informed him that he was dissolving the independent Keaton studio and handing him over to MGM. The crass commercialism and regimented working style at MGM would crush Buster's creativity and spirit, spitting him out five years later as an unemployable alcoholic. It's almost impossible to believe that this inspired, hilarious, warm-hearted film was made under such a cloud. Buster did say later that if he hadn't been so depressed about his situation (his marriage was on the rocks too), he would not have undertaken the most dangerous stunt of his career, when he stands still while the entire front of a building crashes down over him, and he's saved because he's standing in the path of a window frame. Buster's life depended on his hitting a position marked on the ground; if he'd been a few inches off, the façade would have squashed him like a bug. His co-director couldn't stand to watch the scene being filmed, and the cameraman later told his son that he shot the scene with his eyes closed. On-screen, the effect is miraculous and oddly calm, a triumph of geometry. It's an indelible image, and a perfect symbol of a man who ultimately refused to be crushed.
Like much of Keaton's best work, this is a piece of Americana, set in the fictional Mississippi town of River Junction. Steamboat Bill (Ernest Torrence) is a towering, crusty captain of a battered old boat, struggling to survive the competition from a "floating palace" owned by J.J. King, the richest man in town. Bill is expecting a visit from his son, whom he hasn't seen since infancy, and who has been in college in the East. "I bet he's taller'n me!" he crows, and we think: uh-oh. Sure enough, when Buster appears, not only is he petite, he's kitted out with a striped blazer and polka-dot tie, a beret, a ukulele, and a ludicrous little moustache dabbed on his lip. Their reunion is something less than joyful. Young Willie is thrilled to find that his girlfriend from Boston is also in townunfortunately, she's King's daughter. Romeo and Juliet, anyone?
Craggy Ernest Torrence, who specialized in hissable villains, is a superb foil for Buster, serving as both the film's "heavy" and as the object of Buster's efforts to earn approval. At the other end of the height scale is tiny, vivacious Marion Byron, just sixteen at the time, and an effective love interest. The first half of the film follows the clash between gruff, manly father and effete son. Willie is quickly relieved of his moustache and college duds. In one highlight, he tries on an array of hats, using the camera as a mirror and showing off an equally diverse array of subtle facial expressions, culminating in comic horror when Buster's trademark porkpie hat is placed on his head. Willie's idea of "work clothes for the boat" is a dashing naval uniform; while strutting on deck he trips, stumbles and collides with everything possiblewatch for one of Buster's greatest pratfalls when a coil of rope is pulled from under him and he dives forward and spins around on the back of his neck. After he sneaks out at night to visit King's daughter, his enraged father gives him a ticket back to Boston. But before Willie can leave, his father is arrested following an altercation with King, and Junior vows to get Senior out of jail.
A storm is brewing when Willie arrives at the jail, carrying a loaf of bread for his father. Bill wants nothing to do with his son, whose attempts to convey that there are tools hidden in the loaf, without letting the jailer catch on, culminate in a brilliant little pantomime in which Buster, with just his eyes and his fingers, acts out a prison-break. Finally the tools fall out of the soggy bread and clatter to the floor, prompting the movie's funniest title card. Willie looks at them with innocent surprise and says: "That must have happened when the dough fell in the tool box."
In the end, Senior remains in jail while Junior winds up in the hospital. The storm has by now become a cyclone, and thus begins the incomparable finale. When the entire hospital building is ripped from its foundations, Willie ventures dazed into the storm. The wind is so strong that he leans at a 45 degree angle when he tries vainly to walk into it. Houses collapse into splinters. In a haunting scene, Willie takes refuge in a half-ruined theater, where he encounters ghosts of Buster's vaudeville childhood. The whole cyclone sequence is unsurpassed in its surreal and violent beauty. Finally Willie returns to the boat and manages to pilot it himself, vaulting up and down the decks like Douglas Fairbanks and more than proving his manly worth as he comes to the rescue of the other characters.
During the making of Steamboat Bill, Jr., Buster's producer Joseph Schenck informed him that he was dissolving the independent Keaton studio and handing him over to MGM. The crass commercialism and regimented working style at MGM would crush Buster's creativity and spirit, spitting him out five years later as an unemployable alcoholic. It's almost impossible to believe that this inspired, hilarious, warm-hearted film was made under such a cloud. Buster did say later that if he hadn't been so depressed about his situation (his marriage was on the rocks too), he would not have undertaken the most dangerous stunt of his career, when he stands still while the entire front of a building crashes down over him, and he's saved because he's standing in the path of a window frame. Buster's life depended on his hitting a position marked on the ground; if he'd been a few inches off, the façade would have squashed him like a bug. His co-director couldn't stand to watch the scene being filmed, and the cameraman later told his son that he shot the scene with his eyes closed. On-screen, the effect is miraculous and oddly calm, a triumph of geometry. It's an indelible image, and a perfect symbol of a man who ultimately refused to be crushed.