Steamboat Bill Jr. is a 1928 feature-length comedy silent film featuring Buster Keaton. Released by United Artists, the film is the last product of Keaton's independent production team and set of gag writers. It was not a box-office success and proved to be the last picture Keaton would make for United Artists. Keaton would end up moving to MGM where he would make one last film with his trademark style, The Cameraman, before all of his creative control was taken away by the studio.
The director was Charles Reisner, the credited writer was Carl Harbaugh (although Keaton wrote the film and publicly called Harbaugh useless but "on the payroll"), and also featured Ernest Torrence, Marion Byron, and Tom Lewis.
The film was named after a popular Arthur Collins song, "Steamboat Bill".
Buster Keaton as William Canfield Jr.
Ernest Torrence as William 'Steamboat Bill' Canfield Sr.
Marion Byron as Kitty King
Tom McGuire as John James King
Tom Lewis as Tom Carter
James T. Mack as the Minister (uncredited)
Production
The finest moments in Steamboat Bill Jr. come during its cyclone sequence, which was shot in Sacramento, California. Original plans called for the film to end with a flood sequence, but the devastating 1927 Mississippi River Flood caused the ending to be rewritten on short notice. The production built $135,000 worth of breakaway street sets on a riverbank and filmed their systematic destruction with six powerful Liberty-motor wind machines and a 120-foot crane. Keaton himself, who calculated and performed his own stunts, was suspended on a cable from the crane which hurled him from place to place, as if airborne. The resulting sequence on film is astonishing.
The sequence is punctuated by Keaton's single most famous stunt. Keaton stands in the street, making his way through the destruction, when an entire building facade collapses onto him. The attic window fits neatly around Keaton's body as it falls, coming within inches of flattening him. (Keaton performed a similar, though smaller scale stunt, eight years earlier, in the short film One Week). Keaton did the stunt himself with a real building section and no trickery. It has been claimed that if he had stood just inches off the correct spot Keaton would have been seriously injured or killed. Keaton's third wife Eleanor suggested that he took such risks due to despair over financial problems, his failing first marriage, and the imminent loss of his filmmaking independence. Evidence that Keaton was suicidal, however, is scant.
The stunt has been re-created several times on film and television, though usually with facades made from lighter materials. One example is the MacGyver episode "Deadly Silents" from 1991. Legendary Hong Kong film star Jackie Chan has often cited Keaton's acrobatics—and this stunt in particular—as one of his primary influences.
An early version of the film showed the perpetually stone-faced Keaton with a wide grin during the film's final scene. The gag, however, tested very poorly and was cut from the film. No footage of the scene is known to have survived.
The film is also one of the only Keaton films to play on the stature of Keaton himself. At the time of filming, Keaton had stopped wearing his trademark pork-pie cap. During an iconic scene early in the film in which has the Keaton character trying on various hats, a scene to be copied several times in other films, he briefly has the trademark cap set on his head. Upon first glance in the mirror, the character quickly removes the cap, as if terrified to acknowledge his own fame.
Reception
Steamboat Bill, Jr. received mixed reviews upon its release. Variety described the film as "a pip of a comedy" and "one of Keaton's best."[2] The reviewer from The Film Spectator appointed it "as perhaps the best comedy of the year thus far" and advised "exhibitors should go after it."[3] A less enthusiastic review from Harrison's Reports stated "there are many situations all the way through that cause laughs" while noting that "the plot is nonsensical."[4] The New York Times called the film a "gloomy comedy" and a "sorry affair."[5]
Over the years, Steamboat Bill, Jr. has become regarded as a masterpiece of its era. Currently, review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 100% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 16 reviews, with an average score of 9.1/10, with an audience rating above 90%.[6] The film was included in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.
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