"I have called Keaton the most silent of silent film comedians without quite explaining why. The silence was related to another deeply rooted quality -- that immobility, that sense of alert repose, we have so often seen in him. Keaton could run like a jackrabbit and, in almost every feature film, he did. He could stunt like Lloyd, as honestly and even more dangerously. His pictures are motion pictures. Yet, though there is a hurricane eternally raging around him, and though he is often caught up in it, Keaton's constant drift is toward the quiet at the hurricane's eye."
-- Walter Kerr,
The Silent Clowns
A bit of an introduction for a comic actor and director who really needs no introduction. His film "The General" is considered one of the great films of all time, of course, but there is a lot more to Keaton's genius at making people laugh than can be found in one feature.
Some of his best work was in his two-reelers, which he made between 1920-22. The "classical" color still above is from "The Three Ages" (1923) , Buster's monochromatic first feature, which features a sequence set in ancient Rome and contains a spoof of serious films subjects of a "Ben Hur" variety. (Buster is in a chariot race with his rival, played by Wallace Berry, and comes prepared to deal with any situation. When a rare snowfall hits the Circus Maximus, our hero pulls out a team of sled dogs from a basket.) Such inventive adaptation was a trademark of every Keaton film.
I love Keaton's humor and am always fascinated not only by the amazing stunts in films like "Sherlock, Jr" (1924), "The Navigator" (1925), and his first MGM film, "The Cameraman" (1928) but by his great subtlety in screen acting. Keaton could make you laugh with just a nod of his face because of his economy of expression. His motto on screen was "think slow, move fast" and he was a great athlete and acrobat to boot. He also was a keen fan of baseball and played it very often on the set with his crew.
Many of Keaton's two reelers are available for viewing on the Web. If you have a high-speed connection, you can see several of them at this site below:
http://www.archive.org/details/TheGoat
You can navigate around the site from "The Goat" and see other of his public domain works. If you want a bit of an introduction to Keaton's career, go ahead and try the site below. Check out the "biography" section which is loaded with quotes from Buster himself and several stills from his private life as well.
Walter Kerr's book, The Silent Clowns, by the way is the best book I've found on Silent Comedy. If you want a good biography of Keaton, I'd recommend Tom Dardis book, "Buster Keaton: The Man Who Wouldn't Lie Down" (1981). It may be only available at a library or on Amazon Books, but it is worth a read to get a sense of the man and the obstacles he overcame to continue and thrive in show business after a bad skid in the 1930's when both his marriage and his loss of creative control in the grip of Louis B. Mayer at MGM drove him to addiction and despair.
Ironically, in his art, Buster is one of the best cures for despair ever captured on the moving image. I suspect he will be around and enjoyed for as long as "classic" films are around to enjoy.
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