Buster Keaton: The Navigator 1924/ Seven Chances 1925/ Battling Butler 1926. (U.)
Directed By Buster Keaton. (The Navigator with Donald Crisp.)
Starring Keaton, Snitz Edwards, Kathryn McGuire, Ruth Dwyer and Sally O'Neill. Black and white. 66 mins/ 56 mins/ 77 mins. Available on a limited edition Blu-ray 3 disc box set from Eureka Masters of cinema.
When Eureka released their first collection of Keaton features, I suggested that the three films contained within – The General, Sherlock Jr, Steamboat Bill Jr – might just be all you need to know of the greatest of silent comedian's work. I was wrong. Again. The films here aren't up to the standard of those three, but there are treasures here that are unmissable.
In each film, Keaton is cast as a rich privileged sap that adversity is going to make a man of. The Navigator, Keaton's personal favourite and his biggest hit, is an extended set-piece set aboard a deserted and adrift ocean liner. The gags and stunts are remarkable, but perhaps generate more gasps of admiration than actual laughs.
In Seven Chances he has to get married by 7.00 that evening to inherit $7 million. It's a perfect vehicle to show off the range of his talents. The first half has almost no slapstick at all and is Keaton reacting to a series of rejections. The film concludes with an epic chase sequence where hundreds of would-be brides pursue Buster, surely one of the greatest of all silent cinema set pieces. It must also have been a key influence on Benny Hill who not only ended all his shows with a variation of it but made men running away from hordes of women one of the 70s' key fetishes.
Battling Butler is definitely the least of the films here but is still plenty amusing. This tale of an effete aristocrat who ends up posing as the featherweight boxing champion he shares a name with to impresses the family of the country girl he's married doesn't have any of the classic gags or stunts you see in Keaton compilation. Still the skinny wimp pushed into the boxing ring is one of the cinema's greatest recurring gags and there are plenty of charming moments. In these less frantic pieces you get a better chance to appreciate Keaton as a performer rather than a stuntman, see that he was just as accomplished in small character scenes as he was diving off ships or leaping round falling boulders.
Viewers should be aware that the films contain a few moments that might be considered a tad racist. Most notable of these is the conclusion of The Navigator where the boat is attacked by an island of black tribesmen, who are immediately identified as cannibals. What a pity this genius didn't have the foresight to make his humour conform to the social mores of a century in the future.
Special Features
1080p presentations of all three films from the Cohen Film Collection’s stunning 4K restorations, with musical scores composed and conducted by Robert Israel
Directed By Buster Keaton. (The Navigator with Donald Crisp.)
Starring Keaton, Snitz Edwards, Kathryn McGuire, Ruth Dwyer and Sally O'Neill. Black and white. 66 mins/ 56 mins/ 77 mins. Available on a limited edition Blu-ray 3 disc box set from Eureka Masters of cinema.
When Eureka released their first collection of Keaton features, I suggested that the three films contained within – The General, Sherlock Jr, Steamboat Bill Jr – might just be all you need to know of the greatest of silent comedian's work. I was wrong. Again. The films here aren't up to the standard of those three, but there are treasures here that are unmissable.
In each film, Keaton is cast as a rich privileged sap that adversity is going to make a man of. The Navigator, Keaton's personal favourite and his biggest hit, is an extended set-piece set aboard a deserted and adrift ocean liner. The gags and stunts are remarkable, but perhaps generate more gasps of admiration than actual laughs.
In Seven Chances he has to get married by 7.00 that evening to inherit $7 million. It's a perfect vehicle to show off the range of his talents. The first half has almost no slapstick at all and is Keaton reacting to a series of rejections. The film concludes with an epic chase sequence where hundreds of would-be brides pursue Buster, surely one of the greatest of all silent cinema set pieces. It must also have been a key influence on Benny Hill who not only ended all his shows with a variation of it but made men running away from hordes of women one of the 70s' key fetishes.
Battling Butler is definitely the least of the films here but is still plenty amusing. This tale of an effete aristocrat who ends up posing as the featherweight boxing champion he shares a name with to impresses the family of the country girl he's married doesn't have any of the classic gags or stunts you see in Keaton compilation. Still the skinny wimp pushed into the boxing ring is one of the cinema's greatest recurring gags and there are plenty of charming moments. In these less frantic pieces you get a better chance to appreciate Keaton as a performer rather than a stuntman, see that he was just as accomplished in small character scenes as he was diving off ships or leaping round falling boulders.
Viewers should be aware that the films contain a few moments that might be considered a tad racist. Most notable of these is the conclusion of The Navigator where the boat is attacked by an island of black tribesmen, who are immediately identified as cannibals. What a pity this genius didn't have the foresight to make his humour conform to the social mores of a century in the future.
Special Features
1080p presentations of all three films from the Cohen Film Collection’s stunning 4K restorations, with musical scores composed and conducted by Robert Israel
- The Navigator – Audio commentary by silent film historians Robert Arkus and Yair Solan
- Seven Chances – Brand new audio commentary by film historians Joel Goss and Bruce Lawton
- New and exclusive video essay by David Cairns covering all three films
- The Navigator – A short documentary on the making of the film and Keaton’s fascination with boats as sources of comedy, by film historian Bruce Lawton
- Buster Keaton & Irwin Allen audio interview from 1945 [6 mins]
- Buster Keaton & Arthur Friedman audio interview from 1956 [32 mins]
- Buster Keaton & Robert Franklin audio interview from 1958 [56 mins]
- Buster Keaton & Herbert Feinstein audio interview from 1960 [48 mins]
- Buster Keaton & Studs Terkel audio interview from 1960 [38 mins]
- What! No Spinach? (1926, dir. Harry Sweet) [19 mins] – Rarely seen comedy short by American actor/director Harry Sweet, that riffs on a number of elements from Seven Chances
- A LIMITED EDITION 60-PAGE perfect bound collector’s book featuring new writing on all three films; and a selection of archival writing and imagery
