#1033: SEDGWICK, Edward: The Cameraman (1928)

SEDGWICK, Edward (United States)
The Cameraman [1928]
Spine #1033
Blu-ray

Buster Keaton is at the peak of his slapstick powers in The Cameraman — the first film that the silent-screen legend made after signing with MGM, and his last great masterpiece. The final work over which he maintained creative control, this clever farce is the culmination of an extraordinary, decade-long run that produced some of the most innovative and enduring comedies of all time. Keaton plays a hapless newsreel cameraman desperate to impress both his new employer and his winsome office crush as he zigzags up and down Manhattan hustling for a scoop. Along the way, he goes for a swim (and winds up soaked), becomes embroiled in a Chinatown Tong War, and teams up with a memorable monkey sidekick (the famous Josephine). The marvelously inventive film-within-a-film setup allows Keaton's imagination to run wild, yielding both sly insights into the travails of moviemaking and an emotional payoff of disarming poignancy.

69 minutes

Black & White
Silent

1:37:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2020

Director/Writers

Story by Clyde Bruckman and Lew Lipton.

Edward Sedgwick was 36 when he directed The Camerman.

The Film

"The worst mistake of my career," said Buster Keaton about signing with MGM in 1928.

Buster is charging ten cents for a tintype portrait, when he meets Sally (Marceline Day), who is a secretary at MGM Newsreels (how convenient!) ...

In order to be near her, he buys a real camera, and tries to get a job. An MGM cameraman, Stagg (Harold Goodwin) mocks him, but Sally encourages him.

His first attempt is laughed at (full of double exposures, it might remind one of Vertov's Man With a Movie Camera [1929]).

He secures a date with Sally, and they go to the municipal plunge pool.

One of the bits here involves Buster sharing a cramped changing room with an uncredited Edward Brophy.

The next day, Sally gives Buster a hot tip that something is going to happen in Chinatown. He runs into an organ grinder and apparently kills a monkey. A nearby cop (Harry Gribbon) makes him pay for the body; the monkey is only dazed and joins Buster for the rest of the picture.

From this point on, the story careens from scene to scene until the hero wins the day. A ticker-tape parade in his honor is shown; in reality it was for Charles Lindbergh.

Film Rating (0-60):

51

The Extras

The Booklet

Forty-page booklet featuring an essay by critic Imogen Sara Smith and a chapter from Keaton’s 1960 autobiography, cowritten with Charles Samuels.

Smith:

"In 1917, Keaton had been a twenty-one-year-old vaudeville veteran who had never set foot on a film set when comedian Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle invited him to visit Colony Studios on East Forty-Eighth Street in New York and play a scene in the short comedy he was shooting, The Butcher Boy. Keaton later recalled that the first thing he wanted to do when he got to the studio was to 'tear that camera to pieces.' Drawn to all things mechanical, he felt a burning need to know exactly how the film strip traveled through the machine, how the operator controlled the speed, what happened in the cutting room, how the film was assembled and projected. He and the movies had been born the same year, 1895, and from this first encounter he saw where his future lay; he tore up a lucrative theater contract, took a job with Arbuckle's company, and never looked back. It helped that the camera adored him too. As soon as he stepped in front of the lens, his lucid movements and Swiss-watch comic timing, his astounding athleticism and the subtle expressiveness of his beautiful face, made him a natural creature of cinema. Arbuckle, who became Keaton's mentor and best friend, said his protégé 'lived in the camera.' He took to moviemaking with a single-minded passion, pouring himself into his films the way fuel becomes flame, leaving nothing behind except light."

Keaton/Samuels:

"Thalberg, as well as being a fine judge of light comedy and farce, also appreciated good slapstick whenever he saw it on the screen. No truck driver ever guffawed louder at my better sight gags than did that fragile, intellectual boy genius. Nevertheless, he lacked the true low-comedy mind. Like any man who must concern himself with mass production, he was seeking a pattern, a format. Slapstick comedy has a format, but it is hard to detect in its early stages unless you are one of those who can create it. The unexpected was our staple product, the unusual our object, and the unique was the ideal we were always hoping to achieve ... brilliant though he was, Irving Thalberg could not accept the way a comedian like me built his stories. Though it seems an odd thing to say, I believe that he would have been lost working in my little studio. His mind was too orderly for our harum-scarum, catch-as-catch-can, gag-grabbing method. Our way of operating would have seemed hopelessly mad to him. But, believe me, it was the only way. Somehow some of the frenzy and hysteria of our breathless, impromptu comedy-building got into our movies and made them exciting."

Commentary

From 2004 featuring Glenn Mitchell, author of A-Z of Silent Film Comedy.

Good informative breezy take.

New 2K restoration

Of Keaton’s Spite Marriage (1929), with a 2004 audio commentary by film historians John Bengtson and Jeffrey Vance.

A delightful addition to this release.

Remade in 1943 as I Dood It.

Originally billed as Keaton's first talkie, the film remained a silent on release. Keaton is wonderful, here paired with Dorothy Sebastian, giving a fine performance as the celebrated actress Trilby Drew.

The film hurtles through the inital scenes in the theater and ends up on a hijacked yacht. The laughs keep on coming, and Keaton does his stuff.

The commentary is wonderful.

Time Travelers

A documentary by Daniel Raim featuring interviews with Bengtson and film historian Marc Wanamaker.

Terrific extra about L.A. locations in these early films.

So Funny It Hurt: Buster Keaton & MGM

A 2004 documentary by film historian Kevin Brownlow and filmmaker Christopher Bird.

Keaton disastrous relationship with MGM.

The Motion Picture Camera

A 1979 documentary.

A comprehensive look at all the early cameras.

Interview

With James L. Neibaur, author of The Fall of Buster Keaton.

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

51 + 36 =

87

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