Keaton disliked the series and critics regard it as the nadir of his career.ĭepression and alcoholism affected the careers of both Keaton and Bruckman. Most of the shorts were shot on a small budget and a time schedule of three days. Despite his frustration with the casual work ethic of his “all-talkie” successors, Keaton worked on and off as a comedy consultant for the studio until 1950, coaching comedy stars such as Red Skelton.īruckman and Keaton were reunited professionally for Pest from the West (1939), the first of 10 two-reel shorts for Columbia Pictures. Assigned to the Marx Brothers’ At the Circus (1939), the ever-punctual Keaton arrived at 8 a.m., while the brothers showed up after lunch. In 1937, he was back on the MGM payroll, this time as a gag writer. Both sides were unhappy with the partnership, so Keaton and MGM temporarily parted ways in February 1933. “The brass wanted to know how they could budget a show if we didn’t follow the script.” Although The Cameraman was a late silent-era hit, MGM reined in Keaton’s spendthrift habits. “ situation arises that has comic potential and likes to milk it for all it’s worth,” he told Keaton biographer Tom Dardis in 1977. Actor Harold Goodwin recalled friction between Keaton and his new bosses on the set of The Cameraman, Keaton’s first MGM picture. But MGM’s money-conscious producers, who were tackling the conversion to sound, wanted accountability. Keaton was accustomed to improvising gags around a rough story outline. Keaton worked as an independent for more than 10 years, making 19 shorts and 11 features before signing a contract with MGM in 1928. Fields in The Fatal Glass of Beer (1933), as well as writing scores of gags for the Three Stooges. He also worked with other comedy legends, directing Harold Lloyd in Welcome Danger (1929) and W.C. Bruckman was a key member of Keaton’s team in the 1920s, writing Sherlock Jr. and directing The General (1926). They became lifelong friends, sharing an affinity for cards and liquor. The two men spent four to five days a week at Keaton’s home, mapping out elaborate stunts. When he stepped in front of the camera to make his film debut in Arbuckle’s The Butcher Boy (1917), he was just beginning to exploit the camera’s potential.Īt Comique, Keaton first met gag-writer Clyde Bruckman, who understood the actor’s “man against mechanics” approach to physical comedy. He took it completely apart, studied every piece, and returned it intact the next morning. He was so intrigued by the camera that he asked to take one home. Keaton first stepped onto a film set in 1917 at Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s Comique Film Corporation. When he turned to filmmaking, he combined his comic timing and willingness to court danger with the added element of the camera, bringing it close to the action, so the audience could feel the actor’s peril. He had honed a repertoire of pratfalls in his early years in Vaudeville, where he had been flung around the stage for comic effect as part of a family act. Yet Keaton was singular in his willingness to risk life and limb, determined to outdo himself with every picture. Pearl White, Tom Mix, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, and Harold Lloyd were among the silent-era stars who performed their own stunts. During a routine physical examination 11 years later, an X-ray revealed that Keaton had fractured his neck. Despite being in severe pain, the always professional 29-year-old got up to finish the scene. During the shoot, the water gushed out with such force that Keaton lost his grip and was thrown to the track below, hitting his head on the rail. Jumping from the top of a moving freight car, he swings down to grab the water tower’s release rope. The scenario, with its nonstop string of stage gags and illusions, allowed Keaton to perform some of his most impressive stunts, one of which nearly cost him his life. In his fourth feature-length film, Sherlock Jr. (1924), he plays a projectionist who falls asleep and dreams he’s the star of a movie about a “crime-crushing” detective. While his characters walked away stone-faced and unharmed, the actor often suffered serious injury. From the destruction of a railroad bridge―with a train on top―in The General (1926) to the collapse of a house around his ears in Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928), Buster Keaton went to great lengths to entertain his public.
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