This is the first Buster Keaton film I ever saw – my interest had been piqued after watching Benny & Joon, and I had the good fortune to find out it was due to air on TCM shortly. One recording later (they showed it in the middle of the night, so I didn’t see it until the next day,) I got my first glimpse of Buster’s work in this, one of his most beloved features. These 70 minutes of riotous laughter were enough to convince me that I needed to see more, and before long, I was picking up Kino’s complete collection of his independent shorts and features on DVD, not far from sight unseen.
The plot is a bit of a comedic Romeo and Juliet on steamboats, with extra daddy issues for zest. Willie Canfield, a young, ukulele-playing aesthete, has just returned from school to visit his salt-of-the-earth river rat father, Steamboat Bill. Not having seen Willie since he was a tyke, Bill is embarrassed of his delicate son, with his loudly-patterned clothes and affected manners. He takes it upon himself to whip Willie into a man he can be proud of, while at the same time trying to keep him away from his girl Kitty. Willie knows Kitty from school, and naturally, it turns out that her dad is the big steamboat tycoon trying to run Bill out of business. In typical Buster fashion, though, Willie is a where-there’s-a-will young man, and literally come hell or high water, he’s not about to be separated from Kitty.
One of this film’s best qualities is the relationship between Bill and Willie. Although the two have a lot of trouble connecting, and the approval Willie craves isn’t readily forthcoming, you can tell that Bill really does love Willie. When others hassle or insult him, Bill is quick to defend him, and his vain efforts to teach Willie how to throw a punch or drive the boat are his awkward way of reaching out. In unguarded moments when no one is watching (including Willie himself,) Bill’s fondness for his son comes through.
Not to mention, this movie is just tremendously funny. The entire storm sequence is a comic tour-de-force, capped by the most iconic stunt of Buster’s career: the scene where he narrowly escapes being crushed by a falling house-front, passing safely through the open window. It’s so perfectly executed, so ballsy, so Buster. And it’s not just the big moments. There are great gags throughout, and Buster’s acting in the jail scene is some of his funniest ever (I can’t get enough of his not-so-subtle attempts to indicate that there’s a file and other tools inside the bread.)
All throughout my rewatch of Buster’s classic works, I’ve been struck by his athletic prowess. It stands out most in films like one, where he plays a character who’s ostensibly weak and clumsy. It takes incredible strength and coordination to fall and tumble the way he does (it’s especially amusing when he’s wearing a costume without sleeves, like his track uniform in College, so you can see the size of the “weakling’s” muscles.) In this movie, one scene that stands out involves him stumbling over the edge of an upper deck in the dark. He clings to the edge while groping and squirming around wildly with his legs before eventually finding a way to scramble down like an honest-to-goodness monkey. The man was a marvel.
Warnings
Just a lot of slapstick violence.
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