Directed by: Buster Keaton & Charles Reisner.
Written by: Carl Harbaugh.
Starring: Buster Keaton (William Canfield Jr.), Ernest Torrence (William 'Steamboat Bill' Canfield), Tom McGuire (J.J. King), Tom Lewis (Tom Carter - First and Last Mate), Marion Byron (Kitty King - King's Daughter).
It
was the Movie of the Week discussion on The Dissolve of my favorite Keaton
film, Sherlock Jr., which made me decide to go through the silent master’s
films one at a time. One of things that was mentioned in that discussion was
what several people thought was a distinct influence on the films of Wes
Anderson in Keaton’s work. It was a connection I had not quite made before –
but watching all of Keaton’s films just a few months after I did the same with
Anderson’s films, the influence in apparent – from the precise framing both use
– often with the most important information at the dead center of the frame –
to some of the style and props used (the book How to Be a Detective that Keaton
reads in Sherlock Jr. – and several others he reads through his films would fit
right in on a bookshelf in the Tenenbaum house). Watching Steamboat Bill Jr.,
the influence was even more apparent. The storyline involves an son, who is
perceived as weak-willed and effete by the father he doesn’t even know, and he
sets about trying to prove himself to his old man. When Keaton arrives in the
movie, sporting a strange mustache and a beret, he looks strangely like Jason
Schwartzman in Rushmore (or really, Schwartzman in any of Anderson’s films).
There are even a few special effects shot during Steamboat Bill Jr.’s excellent
cyclone finale that made me think of the deliberately old school special
effects in the ski racing sequence in Anderson’s latest The Grand Budapest
Hotel. More than ever, Steamboat Bill Jr. shows the influence one master has
had on another.
In
many of Keaton’s movies, he has to prove himself to the woman he is in love
with – or else her father who doesn’t see Keaton as a suitable match for his
daughter. In Steamboat Bill Jr., he pretty much already has the heart of the
girl he loves – Kitty King (Marion Byron) the second they see each other in the
barber shop. They knew each other back in Boston, and both have travelled down
South to visit their fathers. Bill (Keaton) has travelled to see the father he
hasn’t seen since he was a baby – a rough Steamboat captain (Ernest Torrence)
who runs an older, somewhat dilapidated steamship the Stonewall Jackson. Kitty
is in town to see her dad – J.J. King (Tom McGuire) who has just started
running his steamship in direct competition with Bill – and it’s brand new, and
he expects to squash Bill like a bug. The two men hate each other – and both
forbid the two youngsters to be together. But they are in love.
Keaton’s
Bill spends most of the movie trying, mostly in vain, to impress his father.
His dad didn’t even know what he looks like, and when he comes to meet his
son’s train, he thinks that every big, strapping lad his is boy – and doesn’t
look twice at Keaton, who is nattily dressed and at one point prances around
playing a ukulele to try and quiet a crying baby. His first impression of his
son is not good – and it doesn’t get much better as Keaton, in his trademark
style, screws up one thing after another aboard the ship. It gets so bad that
he eventually buys Keaton a ticket home – he wants nothing more to do with him.
But then Keaton not only breaks his father out of jail, but he also displays
heroic actions during a cyclone that hits.
The
cyclone sequence is one of the most famous in all of Keaton’s work – and it’s
easy to see why. Keaton had done the “wall falling on him, but is saved by the
window being in just the right place” gag before he did it in Steamboat Bill
Jr. – but he perfected it here – using a bigger wall, and a smaller window. He
then does several variations of it – as Keaton goes in and out of several doors
and windows, of buildings that eventually come crashing down all around them.
The stunt work in this sequence is among the best in Keaton’s entire
filmography.
More
than most of Keaton’s work, Steamboat Bill Jr. also has a stronger narrative through
line – it isn’t just a bare bones plot as an excuse to build gags on, but an
actual one that pays off as it goes along. It isn’t as needlessly complex as
Battling Butler, where Keaton had to spend too much time explaining everything
either. It is the perfect mixture of narrative and stunt work.
Steamboat
Bill Jr. is probably a notch below Keaton’s absolute masterpieces – Our
Hospitality, Sherlock Jr. and The General – but only a notch. For most
directors, a film as great as Steamboat Bill Jr. would be the high water mark
of their career – the fact that this film is fighting for fourth place in
Keaton’s filmography is a testament to just how great his work was, not an
insult to this film at all.
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