Steamboat Bill Jr

573. STEAMBOAT BILL JR. (1926-USA). With BUSTER KEATON, ERNEST TORRENC£. Co-scripted and edited by KEATON. Buster is a delight as the student son Of a rough-and-tumble river man. He isn’t all Pop hopes him to be; in fact. Buster’s the perfect collegiate with uke and blazer, and is very much out Of place on the river. What follows is a series Of comic misadventures in this, one Of Keaton’s funniest features. Don’t miss the sequence in which he tries on various hats and – horror Of horrors – rejects the flat one that is one Of his trademarks! There’s also the classic cyclone sequence, which is the film’s high point. Look here for one Of Buster’s most famous gags, in which he emerges unscathed after a building crushes to the earth around him because he’s standing directly in the path Of a small, open window. Incredibly, the sequence was filmed using a real structure, and without a stuntman or special effects. Keaton later was quoted as saying that “the clearance Of that window was exactly three inches over my head and past each shoulder. And the front Of the building- I’m not kidding- weighed two tons.” “Silent” film with original organ score, correct projection speed. 104 minutes. Keaton