Buster Keaton’s Motion Picture Debut: The First Five Films
From our 21st century perspective, Buster Keaton’s upbringing was certainly unusual. Born to parents who made a modest living performing in travelling medicine shows, he became a performer himself at a very young age. Arguably a child prodigy with exceptional comedic and acrobatic skills, he soon became the highlight of the family act. In time the Keatons were able to work their way to the vaudeville stage as “The Three Keatons,” specializing in slapstick comedy. The family act became so well known that none other than William Randolph Hearst offered to star them in a film series based on the comic strip Bringing Up Father. This being an era when motion pictures were considered beneath the stage, Buster’s father Joe indignantly turned the offer down: “You want to show The Three Keatons on a bedsheet for ten cents?”
The Three Keatons performed in countless theaters across America until disbanding in 1917. Looking for a fresh start, the 21-year-old Buster signed up to perform with the prestigious revue The Passing Show of 1917 in New York City. While waiting for rehearsals to begin, he was invited to tour comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s nearby movie studio where a series of comedy shorts was about to start production. Already fascinated by cinema prior to his visit, Buster decided he wanted to leave the stage and “cast my lot with the pictures.”
The Butcher Boy (1917)
Buster’s very first film appearance was in The Butcher Boy (1917), Roscoe Arbuckle’s first independent two-reeler. Arbuckle had been a popular performer and director for Mack Sennett for years before going solo in 1917, bringing along fellow Sennett performers like rubber-limbed nephew Al St. John and former prop man Joe Bordeaux to his new “Comique” studio. A generous soul and a patient mentor, Arbuckle had seen the Three Keatons act in the past and was happy to have the talented Buster onboard, allowing him to come up with funny “bits of business” for the screen.
The Butcher Boy is set in a small-town general store where Roscoe works behind the counter. For Buster’s entrance, he’s shown walking into the frame with his back to the camera and examining a barrel full of brooms. Picking up one of the brooms, he then turns and faces the camera. Since The Three Keatons frequently used brooms in their act as slapstick tools, this was probably to help audiences recognize him from the stage. Dressed in overalls and slapshoes, he also sports his familiar little porkpie hat. He and Roscoe then share a simple, but expertly-timed scene involving mishaps with a bucket of molasses. The film also gave Buster multiple opportunities to do impressive pratfalls, the first involving a bag of flour straight to the face.
The Rough House (1917)
Buster’s second film appearance was in Arbuckle’s second Comique The Rough House (1917), which packed in even more slapstick mayhem than The Butcher Boy. Arbuckle’s shown enduring a prickly relationship with his domineering mother-in-law, while the cook Al St. John picks a fight with delivery boy Buster over the hand of the pretty household maid. Soon the fight spills out of the kitchen and throughout the house, destroying the dining room. The second half of the film shows Roscoe having to wait on guests–the staff naturally having been fired–and the cops being called after some jewelry goes missing.
This short has a distinct Sennett film flavor, especially in the final sequence showing Al, Buster and Joe Bordeaux as cops racing to the rescue (the station was low on recruits). Supposedly this sequence used to be even longer, and showed the trio repeatedly emerging from the wrong subway stations. Like all the Comiques The Rough House is lively and thoroughly unpretentious, and gave Buster many opportunities to use his pratfalling skills, well-matched by Al. Their ferocious kitchen fight has been described as a slapstick ballet.
His Wedding Night (1917)
His Wedding Night is set in another small-town store: a pharmacy called Koff & Kramp where Roscoe works the front counter. Roscoe proposes to his sweetheart (played by the spunky Alice Mann) and angers his romantic rival Al St. John. Al hatches a wild plan to kidnap Alice and force her into marriage. Buster pops up as another delivery boy character, this time to deliver Alice’s wedding dress. Alice excitedly asks Buster to model the dress for her, and this being a silent comedy short and all, he cheerfully obliges. Al’s dastardly plan is put into motion, but he doesn’t realize that the “girl” he just kidnapped was actually Buster in drag.
By now Buster was hitting his stride as a series regular, and certainly seems to have contributed some ideas, such as having a folding screen drop down dramatically to reveal him modeling the wedding dress. He hams it up delightfully, smiling onscreen several times (yes, you’ll notice that he smiles in all the Comiques), and looking completely at ease in the surreal world of silent comedy–a world where the villain seemingly can’t hear Buster’s voice when he finds himself getting kidnapped!
4. Oh, Doctor! (1917)
This fourth Comique short was a decided change of pace and a bit more plot-heavy. Roscoe plays the well-to-do Dr. I. O. Dine who takes his wife and pampered young son to the horse races. A smartly-dressed Al shows up at the track with his vamp-ish, attractive wife, and Roscoe secretly strikes up a flirtation with her. Both Roscoe and Al lose all their money betting on a losing horse. Trying to cover their loss, Al and his wife hatch a plot to steal jewelry from the wealthy Roscoe. And of course, this risky plan goes awry.
Buster has the unusual role of playing Roscoe’s bratty son, laughing and bawling and getting constantly smacked around by the old man. The histrionics can seem pretty startling to fans used to his subtle, straight-faced persona of the 1920s.
5. Coney Island (1917)
This is the short where Buster (and yes, that’s him laughing in the above photo!) truly feels like an essential cog in the Comique machinery. A breezy short with a relaxed feel, Coney Island simply follows the adventures of Roscoe, Al and Buster at the famous amusement park. Buster loses his girl Alice Mann to rival Al St. John and decides to pursue them in the park, while at the same time Roscoe sneaks away from his nagging wife to have a high ol’ time. One thing leads to another and soon Roscoe, Al and Buster are all rivals for the hand of the fickle Alice.
The actors play off each other’s skills well and share equal amounts of screentime, and as a bonus we get to enjoy footage of a sunny Edwardian-era Coney Island and Luna Park. Buster does a standing backflip at one point, just because he can. With such a creative training ground and such good-natured talent all around him, it’s not hard to see why he was happy with his decision to leave the stage for motion pictures–and never look back.
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–Lea Stans for Classic Movie Hub
You can read all of Lea’s Silents are Golden articles here.
Lea Stans is a born-and-raised Minnesotan with a degree in English and an obsessive interest in the silent film era (which she largely blames on Buster Keaton). In addition to blogging about her passion at her site Silent-ology, she is a columnist for the Silent Film Quarterly and has also written for The Keaton Chronicle.
