| After Keaton's 10 shorts with Columbia, Buster made his living by taking small roles in feature films. With the advent of television though, he found a new outlet for his talents. Making may appearances on TV comedy and variety shows Keaton gained a new fans. His newfound popularity meant more work, and he appeared in several commercials and industrial films. Now the good people at Laughsmith Entertainment in association with Mackinac Media have gathered a collection of Keaton's lesser seen works, including the aforementioned TV show and commercial appearances, as well as promotional films and two of his sound features (including one made at MGM,) and a silent short, appearing for the first time with the original intertitles. This is a great collection that supplements Kino's fine set of Keaton silent films very well.
There is a lot of material in this collection, and most of it is pretty funny. This two disc set starts out with one of Keaton's great silent shorts, The Playhouse (1921). In this amazing short, a technical tour de force, Keaton plays a nine piece orchestra all by himself and appears as all nine musicians on the screen at the same time. Not only is the film a technical masterpiece, but it's funny too. Buster plays a stage hand at a playhouse who gets into all sorts of trouble with a pair of twins, and a strongman who's beard catches on fire.
This version of the film is a little bit different than all the other versions that have been released on home video. In addition to having the original intertitle cards, this version has reputedly restored the scenes to their original order. It's a minor change, just two shots are switched, but it is nice to have this short as it was intended to be sene. I wish they would have given a little more information about how the producers became convinced that just about all of the other prints were incorrect. On the commentary track all they do is mention that the curator of the Raymond Rohauer film archive said that the print they had restored had the scenes switched. No more information was given.
Next up is Keaton's fourth taking film, made for MGM in 1931, Parlor, Bedroom, and Bath. Keaton's films went steadily down hill during his time at MGM, they just didn't know what kinds of scripts to give him. This film is a good illustration of this.
The plot is a very loose retelling of The Taming of the Shrew. Virginia (Sally Eilers) wants to marry her boyfriend Jeff (Reginald Denny) but refuses to until her older sister Angelica (Dorothy Christy) is wed. Jeff hits Reggie (Buster Keaton) with his car and takes him to Virginia's house to recuperate when he comes up with an idea: He'll get Reggie to marry Angelica. The only problem is that Reggie is a shy sap, and Reggie needs to convince everyone he's a great lover.
This film starts off dreadfully slow. The first 45 minutes are very bland and dull. Things start to move in the last act though, when Polly (Charlotte Greenwood who steals every scene that she's in) teaches Reggie how to woo a woman. The last section is very funny and worth watching, it's just not worth sitting through the first acts to get to it.
One interesting thing about this movie is that it the exterior shots were filmed at Keaton's Beverly Hills Mansion. It is a nice chance to see his "Italian Villa" in it's prime. Keaton would sell the house in 1933.
Character Studies is a short film, recently discovered, that was probably made for a party at Pickfair. It has cameo appearances by magician Carter DeHaven, Roscoe "Fatty"Arbuckle, Jackie Coogan, Douglas Fairbanks, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Rudolph Valentino. (This also appears on The Forgotten Films of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.)
The second feature included in this set is An Old Spanish Custom (1935) (Original title: The Invader.) This is a fairly wretched film, but has some interesting moments. It was produced by Sam Spiegel who would later go on to produce such notable films as Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and On the Waterfront, and stared Lupita Tovar who played Eva in the Spanish language version of Dracula. The plot for this film is simple, too simple to carry a film that runs nearly an hour actually. A jealous man promises to kill the next person who flirts with his wife. As luck would have it, Keaton flirts and spends the rest of the film trying to stay alive.
Keaton was married to his second wife at the time, Mae, and he was drinking heavily and it shows. Though he looks better here than he does in some of his MGM features, he's not the clown that he was only a few years earlier. The film itself is padded horribly in order to attain feature length, and this padding, including a long dance scene, only serves to grind the comic action to a halt.
The rest of the first disc is taken up with a selection of promotional films that were produced over the years. These include; Seein' Stars (1922), The Voice of Hollywood #10 (1929), and Hollywood on Parade #A-6 (1933). These are a lot of fun to watch. They feature both staged and candid footage of several notables including Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Thomas Ince, among others. The final film has a look at Keaton's 'land yatch' that he bought while working at MGM.
Disc Two:
The second disc was the more entertaining of the two. It starts off with several live TV appearances that Keaton made in the early days of the medium back when shows were aired live. Keaton often recreated scenes from his silent films, and the one that was done most often was the "Can of Molasses Sketch" from his very first film, The Butcher Boy (1917). This section starts off with an excerpt from the original film, followed by three recreations of Keaton's first film scene.
These are all a lot of fun, and it's interesting to see how the scene changes over the years and the gags that Keaton adds to it. A very nice selection. This section includes clips from the following shows:
The Butcher Boy (1917)
The Ed Wynn Show (1949)
The Ken Murray Show (1952)
You Asked For It (1957) (w/ Billy Gilbert)
Keaton also recreates a scene from Chaplin movie Limelight on The Martha Raye Show (1956). Martha plays Chaplin's characters and Keaton reprises his role. Keaton really outshines Raye who hams it up a bit too much.
The last scene is a seven and a half minute excerpt from the show Circus Time (1956) in which Keaton preforms one of his vaudeville routines. A very funny piece that shows that Keaton hadn't lost his touch even as he got older. One can only imagine how funny it would have been to see the Three Keatons preform it live.
There are many commercials included too. These short comedy skits with Buster are rarely seen and a lot of fun to watch. They include:
Alka Seltzer (1958) [5 spots]
Northwest Orient Airlines (1958)
Simon Pure Beer (1958) [6 spots]
Shamrock Oil / Outtakes (1959)
Milky Way (1961)
Pure Oil (1965)
Country Club Malt Liquor (1958) [3 spots]
Ford Econoline (1963)
Jeep - Lessons in Living (1960) - this is the only surviving complete Jeep commercial, with Buster in a comedy vignette at the beginning. In addition there are several other Keaton segments (without the sales pitch at the end) from other Jeep commercials.
Pure Oil (1965) - this is one of the funniest pieces in the set, not to mention a great commercial. Buster is a gas station attendant who helps a motorist who has run out of gas.
The set wraps up with a trio of industrial films that Keaton preformed in. The first, The Devil To Pay (1960) is a curious half hour film made by the National Association of Wholesalers that shows what happens when a NASA rocket accidently lands on the Devil's (Keaton) flower garden.
I really enjoyed The Homeowner (1961) a color half hour film that Keaton made to sell houses in Phoenix AZ. John F. Long, a big developer in Phoenix produced this film, but Keaton came up with the gags. A pretty funny film, and also an effective sales tool.
The Triumph of Lester Snapwell (1963) is another color short, this one to promote the Kodak Instamatic camera. Killed while trying to photograph his sweetheart, Lester (Keaton) is taken through different time periods where he has trouble photographing his subjects until he reaches the 60's and experiences the ease of the newest Kodak camera. Not the funniest film in the bunch, but it still had its moments.
These industrial films are great to watch. Keaton had a lot of freedom in these and there are a lot of very comic moments. Some of the gags are great. I especially like the bit in The Homeowner where Keaton sees all of the awards that the builder has won, and then opens his coat to show off his own award: an Oscar.
The DVD:
Audio: The audio quality is pretty good, though a bit of a mixed bag. The silent movies have nice contemporary scores that sound great, but most of the early sound features have some hiss and noise in the background. The TV segments have the roughest audio tracks, with little range and muted sounds. The commercials and industrial segments are better than I would have expected though. Overall an acceptable if not outstanding audio presentation.
Video: The video quality of these films varies. Some of them leave a bit to be desired and have a lot of print damage or low contrast, like the footage from The Butcher Boy. Other films look great though. The color industrial films are all better than I would have expected them to be after decades of neglect. As for the features, Parlor, Bedroom, and Bath is okay, but better than the version on the Passport Video boxed set. An Old Spanish Custom (from a 16mm print) has been touched up a bit, and looks fine though the image is still a bit soft and there are some spots and scratches.
Just about all of the TV spots are very soft and a bit blurry, but still watchable. Over all I'd say this set is very good when considering the rarity and age of these films.
Extras: There are a good number of extras included in this set. This collection has ample audio commentary tracks by various film historians. Films with comments include The Playhouse, Character Studies, Parlor, Bedroom, and Bath, and An Old Spanish Custom. On the second disc, commentaries are found on the Shamrock Oil spots and The Home Owner. These were generally very good. I particularly enjoyed the commentary on An Old Spanish Custom by Richard Roberts. He admits right off the bat that this isn't a great Keaton picture, but then goes on to give some interesting details about the show and the drama that went into making it.
1 Parlor, 5 Bedrooms and 6 Baths is an original 18-minute documentary the profiles Keaton's Beverly Hills house, the Itallian Villa.
There are also a still gallery featuring previously unseen Keaton images, an original press book, and trade advertisements on the discs themselves. Included with the set is a 20 page full color booklet with detailed descriptions of each film, archival photos and essays from authors/historians Ken Gordon, Steve Massa, David B. Pearson, Patricia Eliot Tobias.
Final Thoughts: This is a very good set. While it's not a retrospective of Keaton's career, it does cover his entire career and includes many films that you'd have a hard time seeing anywhere else. Not only are these rare films, but many of them very funny and this two disc set is bargain priced too. This is a great supplement to any library of Buster Keaton films and gets a high Recommendation. | 
Reviews:
