Joe Keaton Movies

Buster Keaton is a boy who wants to marry his sweetheart (a pre-stardom Renee Adoree). But her practical father (Joe Keaton -- in real life, Buster's father) wants to know, "How will you support her?" Buster swears he will go to the city to make good, adding, "If I am not a success I'll come back and shoot myself." The father generously offers to loan him his gun, should that come to pass. And so Buster is off, writing letters home of his adventures. His girl reads that he is working at a hospital. She imagines him as a master surgeon. In reality, he is a veterinary assistant. Then he writes that he is cleaning up on wall street. But he not the tycoon that his girl believes he is -- as a sanitary engineer, Buster is literally "cleaning up." Next he is making his theatrical debut. His girl pictures him on stage as Hamlet. Instead, Buster is actually an extra who is so disruptive that the star haughtily walks off the show. He ends up being chased by the town's police force (in scenes similar in tone to Keaton's two-reeler, Cops, released six months earlier). Finally, a bruised and battered Buster is delivered, via mail, back home to his girl and her father. Obligingly, the father hands the boy a gun, and he and his daughter go into another room while he does the job. But Buster can't even do this right -- he misses. Several fragments of Daydreams are missing and replaced by stills shot while it was being filmed. But it is lucky that the two-reeler exists at all -- the only known copy of it was found in Czechoslovakia. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Buster Keaton's third starring feature (discounting 1920's The Saphead, which was not conceived with Keaton in mind), Our Hospitality is a boisterous satire of family feuds and Southern codes of honor. In 1831, Keaton leaves his home in New York to take charge of his family mansion down South. En route, Keaton befriends pretty Natalie Talmadge (Keaton's real-life wife at the time), who invites him to dine at her family home. Upon meeting Talmadge's father and brothers, Keaton learns that he is the last surviving member of a family with whom Talmadge's kin have been feuding for over 20 years. The brothers are all for killing Keaton on the spot, but Talmadge's father (Joe Roberts) insists that the rules of hospitality be observed: so long as Keaton is a guest in the house, he will not be harmed. Thus, Keaton spends the next few reels alternately planning to sneak out of the mansion without being noticed, and contriving to remain within its walls as long as possible. The dilemma is resolved when Keaton rescues Talmadge from a raging waterfall (a dummy stood in for Talmadge; Keaton used no doubles, and nearly lost his life as a result). Beyond the brilliant sight gags in the closing scenes, the most memorable sequence in Our Hospitality is the bumpy train ride taken by Keaton and Talmadge in an 1831-vintage Stephenson Rocket. This 7-reel silent film represents the only joint appearance of Buster Keaton and Natalie Talmadge; Keaton hoped that by spending several weeks on location with his wife, he could patch up their shaky marriage (it didn't work). Also appearing in Our Hospitality are two other members of the Keaton family: Keaton's ex-vaudevillian father Joe (who performs an eye-popping "high kick") and his son Joseph Keaton IV, playing Buster as a baby. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Buster Keaton began his career in vaudeville as a child, starring with his father Joe and mother Myra as The Three Keatons. This clever Educational two-reeler reunites the trio and adds Buster's sister Louise in the bargain. They play a family of hill folk that make moonshine but who pin their hopes on turning their oversized son Elmer (Dewey Robinson) into a champion wrestler. The big tournament held in Paducah finds Elmer in the ring with the lethal Bullfrog Kraus (Bull Montana). When Kraus starts getting too rough with Elmer, the entire family throws itself at the wrestler and annihilates him, winning the bout. ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide

Not the best of Buster Keaton's silents, Steamboat Bill, Jr. nonetheless contains some of Keaton's best and most spectacular sight gags. Keaton plays Willie Canfield, the namby-pamby son of rough-and-tumble steamboat captain "Steamboat Bill" Canfield (Ernest Torrence). When he's not trying to make a man out of his boy, the captain is carrying on a feud with Tom Carter (Tom McGuire), the wealthy owner of a fancy new ferryboat. Carter has a pretty daughter, Mary King (Marion Byron), with whom Willie falls in love. The two younger folks try to patch up the feud, but this seems impossible once the captain is jailed for punching out Carter. Willie tries ineptly to bust his dad out of jail, only to wind up in the hospital while trying to escape the law. As Willie lies unconscious in bed, a huge cyclone hits town, knocking down tall buildings like kindling. Upon awakening, he does his best to remain standing as the winds buffet him about. He takes refuge in a tree, which is promptly uprooted and blown toward the waterfront. Here is where Willie proves his manhood -- and ends the feud between Steamboat Bill and Carter -- by rescuing practically everyone in the cast from a watery grave. Steamboat Bill, Jr. would be memorable if only for one eye-popping (and dangerously real) sight gag: as the cyclone rages, the facade of a three-story building collapses upon Keaton -- who is saved only because the upstairs window has been left open! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Comic filmmaker Buster Keaton always had a love of gadgetry, and that interest in all things mechanical is allowed full expression here. The two-reeler opens up on college graduation day, and the students are receiving their diplomas. The sheepskins get switched around, however, and Buster, a botany major, receives a diploma in electrical engineering. The dean (Joe Roberts) asks him to wire his house while he takes his family on a vacation; with the help of a book called "Electricity Made Easy," Buster does just that, and more. The dean and his family return to find a staircase that functions like an escalator, a Murphy bed that puts itself away, a toy train set that serves meals, a self-racking pool table, and many other unexpected conveniences. The trial run of the house doesn't go off without a few glitches, of course, but things really go haywire (literally) when Buster's rival (the real electrical engineering graduate) sneaks in and begins switching the cables around. It took two attempts for Keaton to complete this film short. The first time around, in 1921, he got his shoe caught in the staircase/ escalator and broke his leg. He was in a cast for seven weeks and dropped the project for over a year. When he commenced shooting again in 1922, he used his own house for the exterior shots of the dean's home. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This 60-minute pastiche of silent film footage is narrated by humorist Henry Morgan. While the producers clearly worship Buster Keaton, they are confined to public domain material, so many of Keaton's best efforts, notably Sherlock, Jr. and The Navigator, are absent. The clips from Keatons 1917-1919 apprenticeship with Fatty Arbuckle are interesting, though hardly representative. Old "stone face" even smiles and laughs in some of the Arbuckle pictures! Still, there's plenty of great material at hand, especially the lengthy excerpts from Cops (1922) and The General (1926). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide